Mission Interrupted
by Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel
Summary: Lok and Sophie go to retrieve an amulet before the Organisation get it. Instead, they encounter three "Specialists." Lok can't put his finger on it but he knows that there is something wrong about them.
1. Chapter 1: The Specialists

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 1: The Specialists

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

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><p>Lok and Sophie entered the small church cautiously. It was late in the night and no one was around they thought. They proceeded with immense caution. They had visited the church earlier during the day and they had been in many dark and terrifying places before, but what they saw in the darkness of church made them feel uneasy. Imaginary demons jumped out of the shadows. The gargoyles looked alive and made them feel like desecraters of the holy sanctum. The vaulted ceilings made them feel claustrophobic.<p>

It was rumoured that the church was haunted by vampires. The locals called the church "le Théâtre des vampires." The rumour was deeply rooted in the commune's history. Its origins were obscure but the church was often associated with the disappearance of people.

Lok and Sophie softly padded their way to the altar. Moonlight filtered into the church. Dust floated in the shafts of light. Every minute sound put them on edge. Silence was the rule. They knew what they were going to do. They had been planning it to the smallest detail since they had gotten the lay of the church.

Sophie scrutinised the wall behind the altar where the crucifixion hung. Her hands wondered over the surface of the wall. She could just barely feel the seam of a low door. Locked, too. They easily took care of that.

Crouching, they looked at each other for confirmation. They had no idea what was behind the door. They heard no sounds behind the door. Good.

They entered quietly. They saw the usual things seen in a church. There were bells, Bibles, a vault to hold the host, crosses and candles. They ignored those. They were looking for something else. The room was barely bigger than a closet. The room was full of nothing but items that belonged in a church. On the far side was a bookcase of Bibles and other religious documents.

Confused, Lok spoke, "There has to be a trick to this."

"Let's make some light in here. _Boltflare_," she whispered.

They stood shoulder to shoulder awkwardly but began to search the chamber in earnest. After a few minutes of displacing boxes of candles, Sophie realised something. She shifted from foot to foot. Something was creaking under her feet.

Wood. They both stood on a worn carpet. The church was about four hundred years old and the church's floor was stone. She remembered that because the uneven flooring had irritated her.

"Lok, clear the carpet."

They cleared the carpet of the things as best they could. The mess they had seen when they entered made sense. Everything had been pushed to the side and clear of the carpet.

Blood pounding, they rolled over the carpet and found a wooden trapdoor. They pulled it open. Classic: a ladder and some darkness. The both of them went down. It was a long way down.

Without warning, Sophie gasped as her feet hit ice-cold water. She shivered but quickly ignored it. The place was colder than a freezer. Lok whispered a spell to shed some light.

Sophie saw a white fog as she exhaled in the light. After more spells of light, the two teens could see the frost decorating the stone walls.

"Why is it so cold? Brrrr!"

"Let's just keep moving."

The both of them splashed their way through the cold water. Did it seem to get progressively colder as they advanced? The both of them were wishing that they had winter jackets.

Both of them were contemplating going back when they heard a splatter of water and suddenly, the eruption of a fight around the corner. A kamikaze of spells flew across the aqueduct and the two teens leaned against the walls hoping to avoid stray spells and certain death. They could not see the fight but they wagered that at there were a dozen Suits fighting something or someone.

"Let's get out of here," Sophie said. "Whatever's going on, we're clearly too late to get the amulet."

The both of them made their way back to the ladder and then the sound of something popping rang in the air. It sounded like a small explosion. They stilled to see what would happen next.

There was the sound of voices struggling and then silence; nothing but the sound of the swirling water around them.

Lok motioned Sophie to move forward unto the ladder. They climbed back up into the secret room and rushed across the church for the exit. They needed to tell Dante and Zhalia what had happened.

Lok and Sophie came to an abrupt start.

"Not so fast, I'm afraid."

A church pew had been moved to block the doors, their only way out. A man sat on the pew with his legs crossed and his arms draped on the back. Beside him was the glowing green form of a broadsword as tall as a child ready for use. The two seekers could barely see him with the sword's sickly green glow and the filtering moonlight but the stranger was definitely large. He would not go down easy.

They searched for a quick escape in the periphery. The windows were too small to jump through and there were no exits near the crucifixion because the church was centuries old. They would fight, it seemed.

"Aren't you a little young to be out this late?" the stranger playfully.

"Who are you?" Sophie asked.

"And while I may not know much about kids these days, I don't think a church is a particularly romantic place for a date. Don't you agree, missy?"

Both teens felt their faces heat up for a moment.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Lok asked.

"Tit for tat, kid. I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours."

"You first."

"Brandon."

"Alan," Lok said.

"Maria," Sophie said.

"Lying is a shameful pastime, especially for kids as young as you. Try again."

Lok gritted his teeth.

Impatiently, Sophie threw a spell. She was hoping that she could put the man to sleep and make him forget about their passing. _"Simplemind!"_ No light radiated from her hand.

Brandon was unfazed. Sophie looked at her hand and at the stranger bewildered. Her magic did not work.

"Those spells won't work on me. If you will as so gracious as to tell me the truth, what were you looking for exactly in the catacombs below?" The man stood up and hefted the huge sword on his shoulder.

Sophie turned as she heard footfalls from behind. Two more men. One was slender and the other was built.

"Brandon, you were supposed to keep watch. What are two kids doing here?"

"We are not kids!" Sophie said indignantly.

Lok took a moment to examine the three men surrounding them. He took the fact that they were not attacking them as a sign that their presence was unexpected. The situation smelt of several levels of wrong.

"You're very calm and collected for an adult then, young lady," one of the new strangers chastised. He stepped forward towards Sophie fitting on what looked like white fighting gloves with sapphires encrusted in the leather. He had long dark hair and choppy bangs that shone blue in the light.

"Let's try this again: what were you looking for in the catacombs?" Brandon said. "If you tell me the truth, we might all get out of this without a scratch and we can all forget about incident."

"Brandon, are these two kids seekers?"

"Considering that they tried to throw one of those seeker spells at me earlier, I would think yes."

Something in Brandon's tone made Lok worry. "Aren't guys seekers, too?" Lok asked.

"Not at all," the one with long hair said.

Lok and Sophie looked at them nervously. They were surrounded and needed to get out fast before Zhalia, Cherit and Dante would get worried and try to come in.

"Then who do you work for?" Sophie said cautiously.

"Kid, answer my question first. Then I might entertain answering yours. What were you looking for?"

Lok glanced at Sophie nervously. They only threat the man, Brandon, had really posed was his giant green sword. Lok had no doubt that he and Sophie could take out because of their numbers but he was not sure about the other two behind them. They did not have any weapons but he guessed that those were down in the aqueduct and had taken out the Suits. No Suits were coming out from the altar to get them so that could only mean that they had effectively taken them all out.

"An amulet," Lok said vaguely. "And you?"

"An amulet."

"I'm guessing from what happened below that you guys are not with the Organisation," Sophie said. She was on the same page as Lok.

"Correct. I assume that you two kids are from the Huntik Foundation, hmm?" Brandon said.

"Yes."

Brandon pondered Lok's answer. He looked over to his two associates. There was a meaningless exchange between the three. They came to a decision. Lok tensed, wondering if they were going to fight. They were outnumbered so running was their only option.

"Kids, go home. The amulet you're looking for has no practical use to you," Brandon said.

"I think we can decide if it's practical or not on our own," Sophie said.

One of them sighed. It was the one with the long-hair. "You have no idea what this amulet does, do you?" The blue-haired man pulled out a medallion from his suit jacket. It shone purple in the moonlight.

"It holds a titan that's too dangerous to be here by itself. What else do we need to know about it?"

"Young lady, try casting a spell. Go ahead, try."

Irritated, Sophie casted a hasty boltflare. She looked at her hand incredulously. Her spells were not working at all.

Lok tried as well but there was not a single spark in his hand.

"This amulet drains magic. How useful is a magical amulet that takes away your ability to cast spells and defend yourself?" the long-haired man said.

"Helia, Brandon, we're wasting time talking to kids. Let's go before the sun rises." The third man pulled out a cell phone and flipped open. He had received a text message. The cell phone's white light revealed that this man had an angular face and short brown or red spiked hair.

"Patience is a highly-coveted virtue, Riven," the long-haired man said. He put the medallion away.

"Helia, shut up."

"You two," Brandon said to the two seekers. "Will we walk away from this without trouble from you or not?"

Lok and Sophie exchanged glances. Where were the others? Surely, they must have noticed something.

"If you're stalling for time so your friends can come after you, don't expect them," Riven said closing his phone. "You cannot rely on others to come after you all the time."

In an instant, the green sword Brandon had been holding disappeared. Lok some sort of silver device in his hand—maybe the hilt. Brandon twisted the silver until it folded around his wrist like a watch. He slid the small pew back to its place against the wall and opened the doors. Moonlight was bathed everyone. Helia and Riven walked by the two teens.

"Who are you people?" Lok asked.

The one called Riven turned to them and contemplated their questions. Maybe he felt a sort of kindness towards them because of their age or thought that they deserved an answer, but he answered nonetheless: "We are Specialists."

Cautiously, Sophie and Lok followed them outside into the quiet street. They were awe-struck by their immensity. They looked human but Lok's instinct made him doubt that genuineness. He had seen monsters and legends come to life before his eyes for the last few months but he had an easier time believing in those than these three guys. There was something unnatural about them, like they did not belong to their world.

Lok's eyes widened as he realised that Helia was dressed like Suit. He wore a black suit but he wore it as casually any other outfit rather than as a soldier's uniform. Riven and Brandon wheeled out a pair of motorcycles from an alley and put on helmets.

"See you guys later," Helia said.

Brandon and Riven waved and drove off.

Helia turned to the two teens. "And you, young man, be a little more creative about dates with the young lady," Helia said crossing to the other side of the street and into the obsidian shadow of the house across.

Lok's face became red. "I am not on a date with her!"

Seeing that the Suit was alone, Lok and Sophie charged at him. Helia disappeared into the blackness of the shadows, suddenly just as immaterial.

The two teens looked at each other awkwardly. They split up to retrieve Dante, Cherit and Zhalia, all of whom were perfectly fine, and returned to the Huntik Foundation safe house.


	2. Chapter 2: Impaired and Human

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 2: Impaired and Human

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

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><p>The next morning, Lok woke up tired still. His room smelt foreign. It was odd. He had been travelling across the Continent for weeks with Dante, Zhalia, Sophie and Cherit. While the travelling was exhilarating, waking up in an unfamiliar room every day was starting to exhaust him. The room was bathed with yellow light. He could hear the patter of feet around the house. There was chatter coming from downstairs and he could hear the clatter of dishes and cutlery as a late hasty breakfast was prepared. Lok forced himself up and made his way down. He was greeted by Cherit.<p>

He took in the kitchen tableau. Zhalia sat in the corner of the living room brooding while Dante questioned Sophie for answers at the kitchen table. He could smell something sweet on the air. His stomach growled. He ducked into the kitchen. There was an orange-haired bespectacled man in the kitchen. He looked like had had been up for hours.

"Maidin mhaith, Lok," the orange-haired man said. He was Timmy, a Huntik Foundation researcher. There was a nerdy quality about him with his thick glasses. He watched a gaslight stove handling a pan and spatula.

Lok paused to understand the strange greeting. Then he realised the meaning and said, "'Morning, Timmy," Lok said. He smelt the air. "What is that?"

"Crepes. I'm starting to get the hang of this French cooking."

"Cool." Lok looked at the several prepared plates of crepes on the encounter. "I'll bring these to the table."

Lok balanced the plates on his arms and placed them on the table. The sight of food galvanised the others into action. Soon, they were all eating but the tense silence hung over them. Last night's events were troubling. Zhalia, Dante and Cherit had been found mysteriously asleep. It was unfathomable, considering how skilled Zhalia and Dante were. They had stayed up late last night trying to figure out what had happened until a sliver of the sun breached the horizon. It seemed that as soon as everyone had woken up, they had jumped back into talking about last night. Lok became easily tired of the repetitive subject.

Timmy joined the seekers at the table with his cup of coffee.

Sophie pouted for the fiftieth time. "I can't believe that they kept calling us 'kid.' A date with Lok of all people. There was absolutely nothing romantic about it."

"Well, there is only so much you can do about the past," Timmy said. "Just be happy that no one was hurt. It could have been worst, right?"

"Ugh! The gall of some people though! They thought I was on a date with _him_! I mean, really!" Sophie pointed at Lok indignantly.

"Sophie!" The blond seeker's face was red and then he sobered up slightly. "Hey! What's wrong with dating me?"

"I can't believe that you're bothered by it. Lighten up a little. Not everything is supposed to be taken seriously."

Sophie crossed her arms and Dante laughed heartily.

"So, I guess the Organisation has the amulet now?" Cherit said. He held a small teacup full of milk between his claws. His tail danced off the side of the table.

"It looks like it," Lok said.

"But before you saw them, they said that they didn't work for the Organisation?"

"Yeah, but there had been a fight in the catacomb with the Suits. I saw the shadow of a something big but there were titans everywhere. I don't know who it was against though."

"That's troubling. As you said, that amulet drains magic, so what use is it to the Huntik Foundation?" Timmy asked.

"What I'm worried about is the titan inside it," Dante interjected between bites of toast. "Even if we have no spells, what does that mean for the user who summons the titan? Or the titan itself? Then there was the guy who was holding the green sword. I can't imagine what kind of man he is if his preferred weapon is a sword of that size."

"It was like it was straight from a video game," Lok added.

"I can look up the records in the archives," Timmy said. "I have some spare time before some old manuscripts come in from Rouen later tonight. We can head for the library in an hour."

"No, we can't take away your time from your real job here!" Sophie said.

"I think Morgan le Fay and those stories about fairies and white circles can wait a few hours. I'm going to be here all month unless I get called out to somewhere else. You can help me though. How's your French?"

After breakfast, Timmy led Sophie and Lok to the Foundation library through the Paris Métro. The library was in Versailles. Normally, the Huntik Team would have stayed in the Casterwill mansion in Paris were it not for the fact that it was located in a commune completely far away from their current objective. Timmy led them through the Gardens of Versailles as a scenic detour. The library was located several blocks away from the Palace of Versailles. They set about to looking up records about the church immediately.

"So, Timmy, how did the Foundation find you?" Lok asked paging through a book. While he did understand a little bit of French, for he had studied it while in Venice, it was too difficult to decipher properly.

Timmy was hunched over city records. "I found the Huntik Foundation, actually. I was looking into something and I found that joining you helped advance my personal research."

Lok nodded. This was a first for the blond. "So what were looking into at the time?"

"Fairies."

"Really…? That's kind of…."

"Lok, you summon monsters out of pieces of jewellery. Let me also add that you are still underage in many countries and that travel the world with a shady-looking man who always wears a trench coat and a woman who is clearly not your mother."

"Point, Timmy." Lok paused. "Is it really that weird?"

"I'm just saying it's a little suspect. Plus, aren't you Irish? Don't you believe in the sidhe?"

"Yes, but my mom told me about them to scare me into being good."

"Did it work…?"

"…yeah—oh, shut up, Timmy," Lok said. Over the week, he had developed a friendship with the carrot-haired man. While he was not starved for male companionship, there was only so much could talk about to Cherit and Dante was more of a mentor than a friend to him.

Timmy smiled triumphantly and it irritated Lok immensely. "Find anything about the church yet?" Timmy asked.

"No. I can't concentrate." Lok rubbed his eyes. "The letters are jumping at me already. I'm getting a headache."

"Giving up already?" Sophie carried a stack of thick tomes in her arms. She placed them on the table beside the two. She looked at Lok's open book.

"No, it's just I can't understand it."

"Lok, we studied French and English in Venice," she said matter-of-factly. "You're Italian is perfect. It's not that different from French. It should not be that hard."

"Well, I'm sorry, Sophie. I'm not perfect like you." Lok raised his arms up to surrender and got up. He strode down an aisle. "I'm going out to get some fresh air. It's too stuffy in here."

Sophie rolled his eyes at his boyish impatience. There was an undeniable snobbish air about her. "Fine. I'll probably be the one who finds the answer anyways."

"See if I care, Sophie!" Lok said finally. It was full of acid. One could hear the irritation in his voice.

Sophie winced and shook her head in disbelief. "Boys! What was that for?" Sophie slammed the first book atop her tall stack on the table with a great thump. She opened to a page she had bookmarked and began to read in earnest. Moments passed quietly. She was uncomfortable to be alone with Timmy. She could deny the fact that she found his super geekiness cute in a way, but only from afar because the orange-haired man was clearly older than her. He looked to be at least twenty-five.

At the moment, he observed her with a clinical gaze. A chill rode up her spine.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

"You could have been nicer about that."

"What?"

"Sophie, I know that you're young and all, but you can't push away people like that because you can. Not everything is a competition. No one is going to like you if you do that," Timmy said softly. "I'm sure you think you're an adult, but you're not. You're still a teenager."

"I'm not pretending to be anything!" she said indignantly.

"Then is yelling at me necessary?"

She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.

"I don't doubt your great intellect. It takes a lot to be a seeker and it might come naturally to you, but that is not the case for everyone."

"What are you getting at?"

"Lok. He said that the words are jumping at him when he was reading. What do you think that means?"

"Is he dyslexic?"

Timmy adjusted his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "What do you mean, 'Is he dyslexic?'? Sophie, you don't know? I figured this out in less than a week and you still don't know after spending most of your schooling with him?"

Sophie shrank in her seat and shrugged her shoulders. She started to become unnerved by Timmy. "I really don't know. He's good at puzzles and crosswords but…"

"Geez, you remind me of me when I was a kid. Don't you ever wonder why he has an Irish passport yet his Irish sucks horribly?"

"I didn't know…I don't speak Irish."

"Well, I know, because I spend most of my time reading Gaelic texts when I'm not reading French or English. His speaks Irish like a small child yet his Italian is topnotch. I asked him about it. His mother sent him to Italy to complete his education because Italian only has twenty-six grammar rules while English or French have several hundred ever-changing ones. Think about it, Sophie. You may have lost your parents in a fire, but Lok lost just as much as you did by moving away from his family to a country that is not his own."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise to me; apologise to him. You need to understand that he is a person with feelings too. It's not easy for a boy who has lost so much and has so much trouble from the get-go to be snubbed by a girl like you. I was like that once."

Sophie looked at her book dejectedly. She had lost her fire to find an answer. "I think I'll go out for a bit, yeah…."

"You go do that. I'll stay cooped up here abandoned to my books looking for an answer while you enjoy the sunlight. I swear that I am getting whiter and whiter the more I stay in. I'm like a freakin' vampire or something," he said to himself.

"Just don't get any sparkling skin," Sophie said.

"Eww, teen romance."

Sophie stepped outside. The library was hidden among the many offices surrounding the Palace. She looked right and looked left. She had no idea where to go. She could no longer study after what she had discussed with Timmy. Her shoulders were drooped.

She felt out of place in the streets crowded by tourists and government functionaries. She ducked into a nearby internet café. She was not sure that she was going to be useful today. She had lost her fire and needed a coffee to revitalise her spirit. The little shop was a madhouse as dozens of tourists circulated. Sophie shook her head at the madness and was about leave with her coffee. She looked over the computers wondering if she could squeeze a few minutes, not that she had anything pressing to do on a social networking site, but it would be better than diving into the madness of Versailles.

She looked over the heads and stopped. She bit her lip dubiously. She was more than admittedly scared. "Hey." She poked Lok over his shoulder. He was looking at his email. For the most part, it was non-sensical. She recognised his mother's last name though. Then she realised that he must have been trying to compose an email in Irish.

He looked up to her. "Yeah?"

She could tell in his posture that he was slightly irritated. "I'm sorry about earlier," she said.

He raised one eyebrow and promptly ignored her. He returned to his email. "Whatever."

She bit her lower lip. "No, really, I was being too mean, and you didn't deserve that."

"Why this all of a sudden, Sophie?" Lok turned in his seat to face her.

"I just have a hard time talking to people. I grew up alone and I just don't know how to act. I'm really sorry."

"Okay…apology accepted, I guess."

"'I guess?' Lok, I'm sorry! I didn't realise that you were dyslexic." Sophie hand flew to her mouth immediately. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I'm really sorry."

"I'm not retarded, Sophie."

"I didn't say that!" Sophie shouted. "Look. I'm just sorry! I do stupid things, too, alright? I don't think that this makes any less of a good seeker or anything like that. I'm just too stupid to realise that other people have problems too. I give up!" Sophie turned to exit the coffee shop before Lok could respond. She made her back to the library. Instead of returning to the study table where Timmy was, she turned to the left to sit at the foot of a staircase.

She wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her arm warmers. At times like these, she would have appreciated to have a mother to tell her how to deal with boys. She sat there for a good half of an hour wallowing in self-pity. It was on particular days like this that she remembered that she was still a child inside.

She heard the library door open and looked. It was Lok. She could not read his face. She almost attempted to apologise again but decided against it.

"You're crying," he said.

"Yeah…."

"Why? Is it because of earlier?"

She kept silent. She did not want to make an enemy of him. She already felt horrible about the fact that she had never noticed him sitting behind her in most of their classes before.

He sat beside her an arm's length away. "Does it bother you that much?" he asked.

"Doesn't it for you?"

He shrugged. "I was born with it. What can I do? Mom let me stay in Italy because she saw that I had an easier time here than in Ireland." Lok looked at his watch. "We should probably get back to the books. Timmy is going to wonder what happened to us."

Sophie nodded. She watched him disappear into the depths of the library. She could not deny the fact that she felt snubbed by the fact that he refused to go into the depth about his problems (for she never realised that he had any problems at all). She had forgotten that he was human with weaknesses despite being a quick-learning seeker. She could not continue to be ignorant of these facts. Sophie stood up and followed after him. She promised herself to be more observant of the people around her.

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><p>Just to clarify, this isn't a crossover where the Specialists happen to be Earthlings. The Winx Club and Huntik canons will collide. Forgive me if my Huntik knowledge is more than inadequate. I marathoned it during the summer but there is only so much I can work with.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3: En parcourant Paris

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 3: En parcourant Paris

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

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><p>Timmy, Sophie and Lok resumed their research with muted fervour. For the most part, Timmy was largely ignorant of the tension between the two teens, or pretended to be. Sophie could not help but glance occasionally at Lok. He was silent when he read. His eyes were concentrated on the page before him. He occasionally typed a foreign word into Timmy's research laptop to look for a translation or a definition. In the time that the two were gone, Timmy had accomplished more than the teens could. He had narrowed down their search to several decades before the beginning of the Renaissance with anthropological ease.<p>

Sophie and Lok were more than grateful for his help. They could only slog through so many centuries of obscure (boring) French history before their minds melted. The library was simply a muddled collection of tomes collected by various seeker factions before the end of the Ancien Régime.

Timmy watched the two teens suffer before saying, "There is absolutely no clue about what this titan could be. The locals today say 'vampire' but these disappearances have been going on long before the idea of John Polidori's vampire came along. Vampires didn't really come to France until maybe the Renaissance with Guttenberg's printing press so it must have been something else."

Lok sighed. "These disappearances started in the 1400s but, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Plague happened in 1348 or something. Couldn't that mean that it might have happened long before that too? Not everyone was literate so a lot might have been lost during that time, especially local rumours and family history with everyone dying."

"Normally, I would look down on that type of generalisation of history, but you're right Lok. It's possibly," Timmy said. "Too many people were illiterate and we lost of a lot local history through that."

"What about looking at the nobility in the area at the time?" Sophie suggested. "Aren't they likely to keep diaries?"

"Personal diaries like today's? No. You might find ecclesiastical ones but that is more likely to set us back than help us considering how oppressive the Church was at the time. How did you guys find out about that there was a titan down there in the first place?"

"Guggenheim told us."

"That it was a titan specifically?"

"Well…we assumed that it was a titan because those are the kind of assignments he usually gives us," Lok said. "How many titans have I seen that actually turn out to be creatures from legends sealed into objects?"

Originally, Guggenheim had given them the assignment to retrieve a titan that was apparently hidden below the church because the church had been built by a bourgeois family that happened to be a faction of seekers. It was only natural to assume that the source of centuries of infrequent disappearances were the work of a titan gone wild.

Timmy paused. One could see the innumerable thoughts he processed in his eyes. "Are all the monsters you encounter always titans hidden in objects? Isn't it possibly to still find monsters in their original forms not sealed to an object? I assume Guggenheim did his best to research the disappearances but he certainly could not have gotten farther than we did. He was here the first week that I arrived in Paris and help me set up before leaving for HQ in America."

"Most titans are creatures that were once free, but if there are were some still out there, humans would have seen it and maybe gotten the police involved," Sophie explained. "Then seekers would get involved."

Timmy exhaled softly and thought silently. "Let me pose a hypothetical situation to you two then: if a real magical creature were to appear today, what would you two do? Do you seekers have the knowledge to seal it in an object and tame it?"

Lok looked to Sophie, the more experienced seeker, for answers. She shrugged, unsure. "I…I don't know. I might not be able to, but maybe Dante or Guggenheim would after some research. Casterwill did it but that was a long time ago. Why?"

"It's nothing," Timmy said.

Sophie brushed her hair out of her face. "I don't think we're going to accomplish much here, Timmy. Guggenheim couldn't tell us what the titan was exactly when he looked here and now the Organisation has it. How could they have found out what it was before we could? I'm scared to think of what kind of the titan could be housed in an amulet that has the power to take away magic."

"Maybe we should go back to the house?" Lok suggested.

"Yes," she said nodding. "I'm sorry if we wasted your time here, Timmy."

The two teens looked sullen at not having found an answer.

"It's all right. I at least got my mind off fairies and learnt some new things," he said wiping his glasses. "I'll come home late because I'm going to wait for the manuscripts from Rouen. Good luck with your mission, seekers."

The two teenagers got up and left waving goodbye to the orange-haired researcher. The teens tried their best to navigate Paris. At one point, they turned down the wrong street and got lost. They quickly found their way back and returned to the safe house without any further problems.

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Dante stood on the rooftop where he had been found asleep by Lok and Sophie. He gritted his teeth. He was immensely displeased to find out that he had fallen asleep on the job. He could remember absolutely nothing about the previous night. He remembered watching Lok and Sophie break into the small church and then surveying the streets for any disturbances and then his memory blanked out.

They needed answers. Dante had not yet reported to Guggenheim the failure of their mission. He wanted to find out what had happened exactly before he would report it. He had a dozen theories boiling in his mind. The most logical proposed that some of the Suits were forming their own opposing faction within the Organisation because of the appearance of one Suit unscathed after the fight but that was all pure speculation.

It was a weekday and their very few people inside the church on that afternoon. There was a priest inside for sure.

The older man met Zhalia Moon at street-level. The dark-haired woman had circled the church for anything suspicious but she had found nothing. He could sense that her feathers had been ruffled badly and she was extremely angry about it.

"We need to check the inside," she said.

Dante readily agreed. They briefly discussed their plan before setting it into motion. They needed to find the secret door Lok and Sophie had found the night before and figure out what had happened in the aqueduct. They had no time to wait for the cover of night. They needed to get an answer to Guggenheim quickly. This time, Dante had let Timmy take Lok and Sophie to Versailles to research in the library. He knew already that they would not find much but he and Zhalia needed to work without distractions. For all the talents the two children possessed, it was nothing compared to the experience and instinct Dante and Zhalia had gained over the years. They were too curious about everything. The fact that only three people, the Specialists," besides the two kids came out of the church that night alive put Dante on edge.

Dante entered the church first. There was no one inside as far as he could tell but he knew that there had to be a member of the clergy somewhere. He moved to the front pew and sat discerning the outline of the hidden door behind the altar. A door to a side chamber on the right opened and a man in a black robe with a white collar stepped out carrying a potted plant to put at the foot of the crucifixion. The priest said a polite, "Bonjour," before leaving Dante alone. The seeker looked like a man contemplating the crucifixion.

He heard Zhalia enter the church next. The priest welcomed her as well and they began to whisper quietly in an urgent tone. He saw the priest lead the woman to the side chamber, probably an office. She was providing him the distraction to search the room behind the altar.

"I'm sorry if this is all of a sudden but I don't know much about marriage. I love this man but this proposal all too sudden for both of us," she said softly, almost whimsically in melodious French.

Dante almost died on the spot. He shot an incredulous look to the woman's back. The door closed on both the priest and the female seeker.

Dante was left alone. He stared in wonder at the door and then remembered what he had to do. He figured out the hidden door easily and found the small room behind. He cleared the carpet of boxes of candles and bibles and then rolled up the ratty carpet.

He swallowed hard. Where was the door? All he saw was stone and mortar. There was no more floor to uncover in the closet-size room. He recalled Lok and Sophie's exact words but could not find the wooden trapdoor they had described. It had made a decidedly irritating wooden sound when stepped on.

He was thoroughly confused. He murmured a hurried, "_Breakspell!_" to the floor but nothing happened. He examined the stones and picked at the grouting. There was nothing suspicious about them but he knew that something smelled of sabotage. The stones were just as old as any of the other stones in the building. Gritting his teeth, Dante replaced the carpet and all the boxes and left the small chamber to retake his place at the front pew.

He was at a lost. He contemplated the crucifixion. They had lost an entrance overnight into the underground chamber. Someone or something was going around sabotaging them and Dante did not like this at all. It was bad enough that he, Zhalia and Cherit had fallen asleep without reason last night.

The seeker stood up to leave and waited for Zhalia outside for several minutes before returning to the safe house where they encountered Lok and Sophie. At the kitchen table, everyone presented the fact that they had not found answers much to their dismay. Dante ran a hand through his hair as he tried to find a way to word their failure to Guggenheim.

"Wait..." Zhalia said softly. She stood up from the table and walked into the kitchen.

"What is it?" Dante asked.

"Is something burning?" Sophie said smelling the air. "Is the oven on?" She turned to Lok who shrugged. Perhaps he had decided to cook something and had forgotten about it.

"There's nothing in the kitchen cooking," the dark-haired woman said.

Alarmed, Dante wondered into the living room looking for the source. He could also smell something burning, but it was not quite food. He checked outside in the courtyard and then realised that the smell was the distinct odour of wood burning. He heard something thump upstairs. He dashed up the stairs and felt the hot air assault him.

He felt all the doors for the hottest one. The last one in the hallway was black and he could see smoke seeping through the door frame. He opened it to see the bedroom completely engulfed in orange flames. Everything was on fire. Flames licked the walls black. The air was thin. In the middle of the blaze was a woman rummaging through a burning desk and throwing everything into a duffle bag, including a Huntik Foundation holotome, before closing it.

Dante shouted the first water spell that came to mind to extinguish the fire.

The woman leapt out the open window. Dante followed her but he could not see her in the courtyard. He looked up to see her scampering up to the roof like a fearless squirrel. Without hesitation, he grabbed the edge of the roof and climbed up after her. Her movements were economised yet graceful compared to his rigid and formed ones. She evidently had experience.

She climbed the peak of the roof to the other side and hesitated looking over the edge. She turned around to see Dante and Zhalia cornering her. She had nowhere to go unless she wanted to jump over edge (which was suicidal).

The seekers were undecided about throwing spells. They were not sure if the woman was a seeker like them or a just a petty thief.

The thief arranged the unwieldy worn military green duffle bag by slipping her arms into the hand loops to make an impromptu backpack. This was significant to Dante for mostly members of the military and military aficionados knew about this effort-saving habit.

They sized each other up. Dante saw that the woman wore a fitted sports jacket and cargo pants. Notably, she wore colourful Vans with mismatching socks and a turquoise tuque that had some of her blond locks spilling out over her forehead. If Dante had to guess, the thief was probably of university student age and judging from her slenderness and clothing choice that she was just a thief of some sort who probably had hard luck. She had undoubtedly stolen some valuables along with the holotome.

"You're cornered and outnumbered," Dante said calmly. He could see that her eyes were wild searching for an escape. "Hand over the bag. We won't call the police."

She did not listen. Instead, she turned and dashed across the length of the roof to jump over the gap between the safe house and the neighbouring house. She landed on her feet. In that one motion, Dante knew that she was a traceuse, a woman who practised parkour. How convenient that on their trip to France that they would encounter one. It screamed irony.

The two seekers followed the girl across the gap, much to her surprise. They began their pursuit across the rooftops. Dante dodge roof fixtures and chimneys with his eyes trained on her turquoise hat. The thief was running alongside the ruelle their safe house was located on and he knew that she would come up to a six-lane boulevard intersection where she would have no choice but to stop or turn right to follow the boulevard. There was no way a human could jump six lanes, talented traceur or not.

The girl was one apartment building away from the intersection but something worried Dante. She was not slowing down to stop nor was she turning right to follow the boulevard.

The woman ran at full speed and dived.

Impossible!

The woman latched onto the tall streetlamp located in the middle of the lanes. She held on to the neck and swung herself up and to squat on the curved steel. This woman was possibly incredibly stupid and brave, an Olympic athlete or not human at all. She was definitely a danger now and she was stealing precious Foundation information!

The metal groaned under her weight bending. Before it could break, she leapt off it to the adjacent building across the street like a cat and landed on the edge of the roof with grace.

All bets were off. The man resolved to use magic.

"_Hyperstride!"_ he roared and flew across the boulevard.

For a second, the thief seemed surprised but then rushed off along the roofs. He pursued her determined to not let her get away. _"Boltflare!" _He aimed to set her bag on fire to destroy the data. The spell missed but he threw a dozen more. Zhalia saw his example and followed.

The woman stopped suddenly on the ledge of an apartment building. She turned to eye them questioningly. The two seekers stopped as well waiting for her to do something crazy.

She did.

She turned and dived straight down into the street committing suicide. He heard screams erupt and a commotion stir at street-level. He ran to the edge and saw that the woman was very much alive and unhurt. She looked like she had just landed on all four limbs like a cat.

Dante cursed as she raced down the entrance of a nearby subway station. People were surprised to see her rebound so quickly from her hazardous fall. He jumped as well, whispering a _Featherdrop_ spell to soften his landing. People recoiled in surprise when they saw him too but he did not pay them much attention. He slipped down the stairs of the Paris Métro station right after Zhalia. The thief laced through the crowds like needle through fabric. Zhalia's slender body afforded her the ability to slip through crowds better than Dante and his bulky mass.

Dante search the crowd for the turquoise hat but he could not find it. He had lost track of her—but Zhalia did not.

The dark-haired woman was like a hunter. She moved quietly through the crowd stalking her prey. She saw the other woman slip into a crowd of tourists. She pounced.

She pulled the girl by her arm and twisted it to put her into submission. However, this thief was quick and instinctive quickly bringing her leg up into a scorpion kick that hit Zhalia in the shoulder. The thief escaped her hold but the dark-haired woman pressed on falling into a sweep kick to get her off her feet. The thief fell forward by onto her hands hard. She rolled over to tangle her legs around Zhalia's and twisted pulling the seeker down. She rolled over into a sprinter's starting position as Zhalia fell and ran again.

She hurdled over a turnstile. Dante caught sight of her as she exited the commotion she and Zhalia had caused and followed her. He followed her jumping over the balcony hanging above tracks and to land on the platform. They sprinted down the platform to the end. She dived between the closing doors of the departing train. Dante raced to keep the doors open to hold up the train. They closed before him and he smashed against the leaving train recoiling painfully.

He swore. His heart pounded in his ears deafeningly. Adrenaline rushed in his veins. His hair was drenched with sweat. He ached from the running but he ignored the soreness. He felt Zhalia pull him up and check him for injuries.

"I'm fine," he said angrily.

She ignored the anger understanding. She was just as angry about the theft. The train was gone so there was no chance for them to hop onto it.

Not only had they failed to discover what had happened below the church, they now had data stolen from them. This did not smell like Organisation tampering because the safe house was a decade old. If they had known earlier about safe house, they would have ransacked it already. Not only that, this thief did not use any spells that he could see. It seemed that she had relied only on her own body and skills to escape the duo. She was evidently fitter than the average civilian. He did not want to say that she was militaristic for she had a inventive finesse that was more liberal than the standard rigid military fighting form but the way she carried the bag yet was in plainclothes was a warning sign.

Zhalia and Dante made their way up to the boulevard licking their wounds.

Just then Dante's cell phone began to ring. He answered it. It was Sophie. Her voice was breathless and he could hear a strange crackling in the background, like hot air popping corn kernels.

"Dante, the fire isn't going out. I'm trying every spell I know but nothing is working! The whole second floor is on fire. I'm trying to save the books and our stuff but we need help!"

Eyes wide, Dante relayed the message to Zhalia and they raced off back to the safe house.


	4. Chapter 4: Lost of Innocence

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 4: Lost of Innocence

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

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><p>Dante and Zhalia raced down the boulevard and onto to the ruelle to the safe house. They stopped in the courtyard to see the entire second floor engulfed in flames. The corner of the roof had collapsed on itself. The blaze was a bright reddish orange and the house was blackened. Dante saw Lok and Sophie gathering what they had salvaged outside in the courtyard. People gathered in the streets and in the distance, one could hear the sirens of a fire truck.<p>

The firemen arrived to combat the fire. The entire ruelle was evacuated of its habitants and the Huntik Team with their things were brought to a safe corner of the street.

Amidst the maddening frenzy, Lok turned to Dante. "Why aren't we doing anything?"

Dante exhaled softly. "It's better to lose this safe house than save it. It's been compromised," he explained but Lok could tell that he was not mentioning all of his reasons.

"What do we do now?" Sophie asked.

"I'll call Timmy to tell him what happened and I'll handle all the legal stuff."

Fortunately, the Huntik Team were light packers and collecting their things from the pyre was easy as throwing everything into one bag. They lost some easily replaceable things. Dante checked for everyone's passport.

Zhalia watched the firemen try to put the fire out in vain. She watched the crowd whisper, scream and chatter in nervous terror. They wondered if the entire commune would go up in flames. The firemen tried to douse the flames but it would not abate. Water was ineffective against this fire much to the wonder of everyone present. She watched the rest of the Huntik Team try to organise what they had salvaged.

"Dante, do a headcount," she said unwaveringly after a long pause.

Dante raised a defiant eyebrow at her. He looked at the two teenagers. The kids were there and not worst for wear. He and Zhalia were there….

"Where's Cherit?"

Lok and Sophie froze. Sophie turned to run to the burning house. By then, the entire second floor had been destroyed by the blaze. "He must have been napping in some corner. How could we have forgotten?"

Lok ran after her praying to God that Cherit was alright.

They rushed pass firemen holding a perimeter but Dante caught the two by their collars. A fireman ran up to them and tried to convince them to walk away in French but Lok and Sophie were insensible. They did not listen.

"But…notre animal est encore dedans!" Sophie said in broken French.

He shook his head. It meant that it was too late for them to get into the blaze. "Un feu chimique, on croit." They had resolved to let the fire burn itself out because apparently water was useless against it.

The house was completely consumed with flames and finally, it completely collapsed on itself. Clouds of dust erupted from the wreckage and Dante pulled the kids back down the ruelle before they could get asbestos in their lungs. Sophie struggled against the older man's iron-like grip. She screamed and cried and wanted to run back into the fire. Losing his patience, Dante hit the girl in the stomach and tossed her over his shoulder to run. The fireman grabbed Lok by the wrist and ran.

Sophie screamed in horror. Her eyes watered as she was carried away. Sophie was thrust into Zhalia's arms. The girl held on tight to the older woman as she inexplicably became a fountain of tears. Awkwardly, the dark-haired woman tried to hug and reassure the girl but she was not apt in such things. Sophie fell to her knees crying "maman" and "papa." Lok was deposited near Zhalia.

She turned to Lok for help but she could see that the other teen was showing signs of hyperventilation. His chest rose and fell remarkably fast. His eyes were glazed.

Zhalia could not suppress the motherly instinct that she was overcoming her. She remembered that these two teenagers were that: teenagers. They had no experience dealing the less than marvellous proceedings of the world, such as death and murder. This was probably the first time they were experiencing real hopelessness and defeat. She watched them break down and lose their childlike innocence.

She could see that Dante had already figured out what they were experiencing. He forced Lok to sit on the sidewalk. Inside, Zhalia could feel pity for their lost as well as disdain for displaying their emotions so easily. She had lost so much more than them when she had reached their age. What fallacy!

People ran from the wreckage afraid of what carcinogens hung on the air.

Oddly, she saw a man walk through the crowds of fleeing citizens towards the pyre as if curious about what everyone was running from. He was dark-skinned but she could not place of what origin he was. He was not African nor Middle Eastern nor Southeast Asian nor was not a mix of any. He seemed to be a member of a completely undiscovered race. He had long braided brown black hair beaded with gold and silver beads and she could see that his arms were heavily tattooed with mysterious tribal designs. He emanated a certain haughty air with his opened royal purple shirt and dark jeans. She could see his modesty in the white undershirt he wore.

He stared at the blaze underwhelmed by its size as if he were a bigger and badder beast than it.

Zhalia ducked when she heard something like the shot of a thunderous bullet resound in the air. Without warning, big gray clouds formed with alarming speed over the commune. A minute ago, the sky had been devoid of clouds. Rain had not been forecast for another week.

She looked for Dante who had disappeared wondering if this was his doing.

Purple lightning rumbled in the belly of what looked like a storm being birthed. Thunder roared with the intensity of a lion. Zhalia felt Sophie jump in her arms. The thunder was so loud that it rattled their bones

It started to pour, not rain, but pour heavy cold drops, maybe even cups of water. They were drenched to the bone within seconds. It was as if God had decided to spill a bucket of water over the commune.

Miraculously, the house fire started to rescind and die. The woman watched the fire be snuffed out by the torrential downpour slowly until all it left was pile of black rubble. Finally, it was extinguished and their safe house was obliterated.

Dante reappeared several minutes later and helped Zhalia bring the kids to a dry corner with their things. She watched the dark-skinned man who had caught her interest walk away unbothered by the water.

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The Huntik Team checked into their new hotel unthinkingly. Dante and Zhalia pushed through the flurry of emotions to help bring the team to a relatively safe place. They did not allow themselves to feel yet for they needed to be strong for the kids. Sophie and Lok were incapable of functioning properly. They were experiencing a sort of shock, Zhalia would like to think. They were not quite lucid and they were disturbingly obedient. She could even liken them to robots.

The dark-haired woman did what she thought was best: she helped Sophie clean up and put her to bed. Sophie wept quietly and uncontrollably through it all. Zhalia wished she could help the girl more but she knew that this was something that Sophie had to face by herself. Zhalia turned off the lights and closed the curtains to return to the living room. It had measly furnishings. Lok sat on the couch staring at the television. He did not want to admit it but he was shaking as well.

Zhalia sighed and tried to collect her thoughts. She saw Lok jump in seat from the sound of her sigh. He was on edge. She was calm but one could see a storm brewing in her eyes.

There was a knock on the door. It was Timmy and Dante. The detective brought the scholar into the second bedroom where Lok and Dante were going to stay. One could see the immense displeasure in Dante's eyes and feel the air thicken with tension.

Several long minutes passed and the silence was torturous. Zhalia turned on the television. It was on the sports channel. A repeat of rugby match was playing. It was les Tricolores against Scotland. She sat on the couch and yawned. She was not a fan of sports but she would watch anything to pass the time.

The day had been…exciting, to say the least. She was immensely disappointed to have lost the thief but this meant that someone else besides the Organisation and Huntik Foundation had an interest in the titans. She needed to get word to Klaus as soon as she had something more concrete to tell him. He would undoubtedly be interested in what was happening.

Lok was startled when he heard Dante yell something indecipherable from the bedroom.

"What is he doing?" Lok asked.

"Interrogating him, but he knows that he won't get much out of Timmy. I'm sure that Timmy is responsible for the fire."

"What…?" Lok waited for clarification.

She looked at the child and remembered that Lok was still knew to ways of seekers. Feeling generous, she explained: "In the Huntik Foundation, there is a group called Mythos Team. They are a seeker team that is a little on the less-than-legal side of the Foundation. Supposedly, they don't exist but you know how it works…. One of their specialties is arson. The room that caught on fire was Timmy's. I've heard that valuable information is rigged to be destroyed at any time."

Zhalia watched the football zip across the screen.

"Is Timmy part of Mythos? I thought it was that girl who set it on fire."

"Maybe, maybe not. You've seen how he looks like and how he acts. He is not meek enough to be a weak little researcher like Tersly or Peter. He's capable, trained and skilled for sure; a professional under contract like Dante and I. That woman did not use magic on us even when we started throwing spells at us. If she wanted to lose us, she could have easily set us or something else on fire to distract us. Whatever formula Timmy used for the fire is impressive undoubtedly."

Lok looked incredulously at the woman. He was speechless. He shut his mouth and kept silent for a long time. He tried to watch the television but could not concentrate. He was so quiet that the woman almost made the mistake of thinking that he had fallen asleep.

"Can titans die, Zhalia?"

She turned to the young man. What a strange question….

"I don't know. I guess they can because nothing lasts forever but I don't think that they die in the same way that we do," she offered. "If Cherit was alive, he would be with us." She gave no platitudes or lies to placate him. She did not mean to hurt him but she knew that hearing what she had said would do him good. She had learnt over the weeks that she had spent with them that for all the wealth and comfort they had lived with, they still had much to learn about the world.

Timmy and Dante returned to the living room. Dante was livid but quiet. Timmy was sharp-eyed as ever.

"Are you going to call Guggenheim now?" Timmy asked the seeker.

"Yes," he said forlornly. Dante pulled out his cell phone from his jacket.

The call was painful yet mercifully short. Dante's explanation was brief and simple: a third party suddenly had interest in the happenings of the seeker world. After a few curt replies, Dante handed the phone to Timmy.

"Yes, everything except for what the thief has stolen is destroyed. Either way, what she probably stole is little more than everyday information that anyone can have. All my information is kept somewhere else," the researcher said.

After several more minutes, Timmy left to find his own hotel room and the Huntik Team went to sleep.

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In the middle of the night, Lok woke up to the sound of wailing. He looked over to see Dante soundly asleep. He looked to the door to see that the living room light was on. He paused with terror. If Dante was not awake or aware, that was a cause for alarm. He heard quiet whimpers. He thought he was hearing the wails of the bean sí in his groggy state and he hesitated to get up. Then he remembered that most monsters that he encountered were usually titans anyways. He felt for Kipperin around his neck and approached the door. He listened intently.

He recognised the sounds. He opened the door and his heart missed a beat.

He was seeing the bean sí, the fairy woman who sang when death was near. Then he realised that it was no ghost or fairy visiting him but Sophie huddled on the couch crying.

The young man found it unfathomable to see the girl in such a broken state. He had never imagined that she was weak. He thought that she was strong, like an unassailable fortress.

"Sophie?" Lok whispered. He sat beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

She whimpered and leaned into him. She needed the physical contact. She was wrapped in her blanket and she held something in her hand. She held a small wooden picture frame. It held a picture of a family—her family and then it all came back to Lok. Her family had died in a fire years ago. Now, she had lost another dear person: Cherit.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely. She wiped her tears on the corner of her blanket and clutched onto Lok for dear life.

Without meaning to, Lok could feel tears fall down his cheeks. He remembered when his mother told him that his father had disappeared on a trip and that he would never come back.

There was nothing remotely romantic about the tableau. The two children cried and held onto each other to wallow in their tears.

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Zhalia and Dante woke up. Years of training had taught them to be alert at all times. The woman saw the two teens sleeping on the couch and decided not to question the strange tableau.

She saw Dante contemplate at the window. He was making difficult decisions while staring at the street below. She could tell that he had seen a war or two before becoming a private detective.

Dante turned to Zhalia. "Can you stay with the kids? Take them out to breakfast and buy the things we're missing." He tossed her wallet.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Make sure we covered our tracks."

Zhalia nodded and watched Dante leave the hotel suite. She sat at the window and watched him exit the lobby. He looked like a man on a mission and she knew from reputation and experience that he was a capable man.

Hotel telephone rang shrilly much to Zhalia's annoyance. She crossed the room in angry strides and picked it up before the teenagers would wake. She did not want to admit it but she wanted them to sleep off the sadness.

"Hello?"

"Yes, may I speak with…?" It was the receptionist from downstairs. "You've just received a letter, madame. Feel free to pick it up whenever you pass by."

"I'll come down right now."

Zhalia hung the phone. She tossed one worried glance at the sleeping teens before leaving the hotel room. She retrieved her letter and examined the envelope. It addressed her by name and was written with striking script. There was something formal about it with its creamy beige colour and quality paper. She undid the stick seal.

Parchment. Definitely fancy and a warning sign.

She read the message. She pouted her lips questioningly. It was either a dead drop or a meeting and most likely from the Organisation but how did they find her so quickly was the question. She memorised the address and burned the letter.

A dozen agents had disappeared in one night and none of them had contacted Prague or any of the nearby handlers. It more than warranted further investigation.

About an hour, she, Lok and Sophie wondered the shopping centre. She saw them try to act normal but anyone could see through the façade. It was awkward to shop with either teen. Zhalia wondered if this was what it was like to have children.

"Zhalia," Sophie started. The girl looked around furtively. "I need to get some personal things."

"Yes?"

"You know…for girls."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "You want me to cut you two loose?"

"Well, I don't want Lok knowing what I'm buying."

"Fine. I need to get some things and it'll be easier if we split."

Zhalia called for Lok and gave both teens money. They agreed to meet around lunch and went in their separate directions. She wondered if leaving them alone was a good decision. She shook the thought away and headed for the shopping centre's exit.

She navigated the streets. She had left the noisy commercial centre for the quiet quaint cobblestone avenues. She stepped inside a nondescript café. It was small and slightly cramped but nonetheless homey. She ordered a coffee and a croissant to pass the time.

A man with long raven blue hair entered the café. He glanced at Zhalia knowingly and smiled. He pulled a chair up at her table. "Guten Morgen, Zhalia. Wie geht es Ihnen?" he greeted rather eloquently.

She could see that he was no ordinary operative. He was tall and slender, an Adonis among all the men she had worked with in the Organisation. He wore a suit but he did not wear it like a uniform. He had unbuttoned the top two buttons and had loosened his tastefully chosen tie. He seemed to enjoy wearing the suit. His hair was unfashionably long spilling over his shoulders but neatly combed out of his face and it did not detract from his attractiveness.

"Goedemorgen," Zhalia greeted. She refused to be distracted by his exceptional looks. She knew that looks could be deceiving.

"My name is Helia. Herr Klaus asked me to check on you. How are you?" There was an undeniable condescending air in his voice. She could tell that he was the kind of man that Klaus let into his inner circle. Perhaps Helia was relishing the fact that he knew about Klaus's fatherly affections for her? Yes, there was definitely a malicious streak in him that her father would have liked.

"Things are going well," she said.

"Of course, if you consider a house fire and some stolen documents a positive thing."

"How did you hear about that?" she said casually. She was surprised to hear that the Organisation had an inkling of an idea of what had happened but she hid it well.

"Well, I won't deny that it was on the evening news last night."

"So tell me, why are you still here in Paris? Sending me a message like that was risky. You have the amulet already."

"I was about to leave last night until I heard about something unexpected in the news. Another person went missing at that church last night."

Zhalia's delicate eyebrows arched. "That means that whatever business that we have down there is still not finished."

"Yes. Whatever it is, it has become much more violent and more overt."

"What happened?"

"A body was found this morning. It was drained dry of everything: bile, blood and water."

"Everything?"

"All that's left is a husk and skeleton." Helia produced a yellow envelop from his jacket and placed it on the table.

Zhalia opened it. It was the police report from the city as well as pictures. She tried to keep her cool as the examined the pictures. They were not for the faint of heart.

She looked up to Helia. "So there really is a vampire down there?"

"Yes, and I'm thinking that your papa will be interested in adding it to his collection."

* * *

><p>I would like to note that there are parts of the dialogue written in French (Sophie and the fireman), German (Helia) and Dutch (Zhalia). You as the reader might wonder what they said, but it's not necessarily important. I made them simple enough that anyone could guess the context through phonetics and transliteration. Punch it into Google and you'll get an answer.<p>

I assume Sophie is French because their stint in Paris brings her back bad memories. I find that the Huntik wikis are not coherent and are actually lacking. One mentions that her family died in England while another says Paris. What? That is a research failure to me.

In the flashbacks for Zhalia, we find out that she is from Amsterdam yet no one in _the entirety of the Internet_ bothers to mention this in the wikis either. Not to be condescending, but time and place are important for context of any person's story. Being from the Netherlands makes her Dutch in my book. Helia speaks German because the Organisation HQ is in Prague and I am more familiar with German than other recognised languages in the Czech Republic.


	5. Chapter 5: Continuing the Mission

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 5: Continuing the Mission

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

* * *

><p>Dante stood in the wreckage of the burnt down safe house trying to make sense of what had happened. The police were trying to clear the debris looking for clues. They were all friends to the Huntik Foundation so he did worry too much about them finding anything strange without reporting it to him. He had no doubt that what Timmy had told to Guggenheim was true. He seemed like a very capable young man and he obviously hid more than his share of secrets.<p>

Dante knew of the ever burning fire that the researcher had used to destroy the house. He knew that water would be ineffective against it and he knew that whatever it touched would not go out until it was destroyed.

They were now removing beams and other pieces of the infrastructure. Dante looked at the surrounding houses. (Thankfully, they had not burnt down.) He was in the remnants of the kitchen looking for anything salvageable. Some of the foundation had survived but everything had been charred black. He had no idea what he was looking for in the mess. He thought that going to the safe house would keep him busy but apparently, other operatives were already taking care of the tedious business of insurance and police reports.

In truth, he was looking for the remains of a skeleton.

He was looking for Cherit's but he was not so sure if could find one. If Cherit had died, did he leave a skeleton behind? Did Cherit go back to his amulet? There were too many mind-boggling questions running through his head and he was not sure as to whether or not what he was doing was right. Cherit would have obviously found them if he was alive. All he knew right now was that he had to suppress the militant seeker in his head and become a strong figure for Lok and Sophie.

Just then, Dante was scared witless as a green duffle bag fell out of the sky in front of him. He looked up to see someone standing on the roof of the neighbouring house. He saw a flash of turquoise before it disappeared. It was the thief again!

Dante opened the bag wary of its contents. It was not a bomb but stacks of French Euros. He searched the bag further and only found bills. Perplexed but assured that it was not a bomb, the seeker leapt up to the top of the roof to give chase.

The thief jumped out of the way of the seeker and moved as far away as she could while staying on the same roof. She stood across from him ready to run.

"I don't want to fight, I swear," she said. She held her hands up to show that she had no weapons. "I'm sorry about the house." She had a surprisingly soft and soothing voice, but it was confident and unyielding.

It was a showdown. They were on the precipice of beginning another chase. This time, he would not restraint himself from firing away spells. Over the pass few weeks, he had grown soft because he had always been in the presence of Lok and Sophie. It had been his attempt to be the exemplary adult in their more than suspicious troupe but now, he would not hold back. Familiar—ferocious—instincts bubbled to the surface.

Still...he hesitated. He cursed his weakness.

She looked somewhat like a cornered animal with her eyes darting everywhere at once. She was expecting animalistic fury and he was ready to give it. She would not go down without a fight.

He hesitated. He did not need to be that brutal with her, he thought. She did not look like a seeker at all nor did she use any spells. He was convinced that she had yet to unveil the weapon that would destroy him and his team. She had extraordinary (read unnatural) athleticism and he was beginning to wonder if she was human at all.

She made a sudden movement that alerted him. Without thinking, he roared, "_Boltflare!_"

The ball of light sizzled in the air crackling. She slapped the yellow bolt like an annoying gnat. The energy howled like thunder and lodged itself into the black shingles and melted it away into the gutter.

Dante was stupefied. She had not created a shield or dodged it. She had "slapped" it away! She had tossed a ball of dangerous energy away like it was nothing!

"I don't want a fight," she said.

The seeker refrained himself from throwing another spell.

"I would like to say something to you and your organisation: leave. Leave Paris. Every single one of you, especially those kids that are with you. Forget about the church and get as far away as you can from Paris. If that woman is released, she will kill you, your woman and those kids."

"Woman? What woman?"

"The...'vampire.' She will kill each and every one of you and your seeker friends in Paris. I hear that you are one of the best in your organisation, Mr Vale. Recognise this warning and evacuate the city of seekers."

Dante held his hands at his side. He shook his head in disbelief. "Why should I believe this bluff of yours?"

"Would you really bet the lives of those children like this just so you can pose your male ego in front of me to show how fearless you are?" she said acerbically.

Dante gritted his teeth. "How dare you make assumptions about me!"

"Then take the money and leave the city."

The thief took a fatal step back and fell three stories down to the street. Dante raced to look over the edge. The street was devoid of people. The woman had effectively disappeared.

000000

Sophie, Lok and Zhalia returned to the hotel where they ate lunch. Timmy joined them seeing as he was not allowed to continue his research for fear of being followed and revealing the location of the library. They sat at a round table hidden in the corner.

"Do any of the victims have anything in common?" Timmy started rather morbidly. He stirred sugar into a coffee.

Sophie paled. They had just heard about the newest victim from Timmy. Zhalia listened intently.

"No, I don't think so," Lok said nervously.

"Are you sure about that?"

"...no."

"Let me pose you a hypothetical situation then. Only seekers know magic on this planet. Why is this so? What is stopping people outside the Organisation and the Foundation from learning magic?"

"I don't understand your question, Timmy," Sophie said.

"For as long as I have been with the Foundation, I was given the distinct impression that only seekers knew magic but the concept of seekers, people who go about protecting ancient magical history, did not exist hundreds of years ago during the time of Joan of Arc. Did she really call herself a 'chercheuse' because she wanted to protect history or because she wanted to lead France to victory? We must differentiate what we think of people and what people truly are. Feminist use Joan of Arc as an excuse for feminism out of context, which is pure stupidity on their part. It seems to me that this 'conserve history' agenda is a recent product that came along with the advancement of educational systems. Humans did not care for history until the Enlightenment. So my question is: why is it that only seekers have magic?"

"Well...I..." Sophie hesitated to answer Timmy's question. "Well, Lok didn't start learning magic until this summer..."

"But my parents are seekers, Sophie."

"So were mine..." Sophie turned to Zhalia, who was completely uninterested with the conversation.

"Why are you asking this?" Lok said.

"Pure curiosity. Last night's victim was a woman I recently met. She had delivered the manuscript from Rouen late in the evening."

Sophie and Lok jumped in their seats. Zhalia glanced curiously at the researcher.

"The victim who had first caught Guggenheim's interest was a man called Alexandre Rozier. The name Rozier is a fairly common name in this commune only and the Rozier family frequently appears in the Versailles library archives. A quick check of his family shows that he is a true Rozier. Maybe not a seeker like you three for he was an accountant, but he was descended from the Rozier seekers nonetheless. They had once been a seeker faction before being disbanded at the end of the Ancien Régime.

"The victim from several years ago had been a university student paid by the Organisation to do some research for them. The one before that had been another Rozier.

"The last ten disappearances are all connected to seekers but not necessarily the Foundation or the Organisation either. Some were people related to families of the Ancien Régime. One of them was just a grandmother to a seeker in the Foundation."

Sophie and Lok were pale from Timmy's revelation. They squirmed uncomfortably in their seats.

"Someone needs to go down to the church and figure out what is happening soon. Something happened to change the conditions of the disappearances. They used to be once every handful of years. It's unprecedented to have two in the same year." Timmy sipped his coffee.

"Timmy," Zhalia said softly, "What else are you hiding from us?" Her voice was dangerously soft. The teens looked ready to run.

The orange-haired researcher shrugged. "Your assignment is hindering my research. I only found out about this a few hours ago. I won't lie by saying that what I did was not illegal. It is very much so."

Dante appeared at the table and took up his coat to fold it on the back of an unoccupied chair. The older man sighed and poured himself a coffee before starting.

"We're going down to the church. We need to figure out what happened down there and fix it."

"Yes, we know. There is a new victim," Zhalia said. "I thought that those 'Specialists' getting the medallion would be the end of it."

"When do we leave?" Sophie asked. She stood up itching to do something.

"'We' means Zhalia and I," the man clarified. "You and Lok are staying at the hotel. I don't like the smell of things and I'm not risking you two."

"Wha—?" Sophie stuttered.

"What are you doing, Dante?" Zhalia questioned.

"This is getting too dangerous and I don't want to take unnecessary risks. We still don't know what's waiting down there. Those Specialists might be down there, the Organisation and now that thief. Only Zhalia and I are going. You two are waiting at the hotel. You two have gone through enough already," he said finally.

The two teens were silent. After what had happened, they had gotten eerily prone to long silences. It was their only way of voicing their helplessness. Dante and Zhalia stood up and headed for the elevator to prepare for their investigation.

000000

The Palais du Louvre houses one of the biggest art museums on Earth: the Musée de Louvre. Within its 60600 square meters, it holds nearly 35000 objects. One of its more notable objects is Leonardo da Vinci's mysterious La Gioconda. The sun was heading for the west but the museum was still open. It would only close at six o'clock. The museum still teemed with visitors but they were slowly starting to dwindle.

The chamber to the display of the Mona Lisa had about a dozen people in it. Normally, the room would be filled to the brim but since it was a week day, there were less people. The chamber was on the first floor of the former royal palace and the painting was located behind a pane of bullet-proof glass.

Helia contemplated the painting with the lethargy of an unimpressed art critic. He felt nothing when he saw it. He could not appreciate it. However much he wanted to leave the chaos of the chamber, he waited patiently and hoped to understand the enigma of the piece while he waited. He could not help but notice all the subtle security measures. In the back of his mind, a myriad of methods for disabling them bubbled.

A man came to stand beside Helia. He casually wore some warn dark jeans and a flashy graphic t-shirt. His brown hair was unkempt. The dark haired man shook his head. Could this man be any less inconspicuous?

"Planning on stealing it?" the brown-haired man started.

"Just curious about the security," Helia said casually.

"That means you would like to steal it."

"More like test myself to see if I could do it."

"That's called theft."

"You make it sound so ugly. I prefer thinking of it as a test of my skills."

The other man chuckled. "How's it going with the Organisation, Helia?"

"No trouble."

"Good." The brunet paused. He had news that he did not look forward to sharing. "It looks like we're going to have to stay here on Earth a little longer."

"I heard about the victim already. We have to move quickly. They probably think that I brought the medallion to the Organisation, but when they find out that is not case, some difficult questions are going to come up, Brandon."

"Then you know we need to fix the problem and disappear fast."

"I know. 'You know who' is here in Paris though. And not very overjoyed to see me. That might pose a problem."

Brandon paused to look at the Mona Lisa more closely. Like any tourist, he took a picture of it with his cell phone. He returned to Helia and gestured for him to follow him to see the other exhibits. "Let's not make enemies on this mission, Helia. We need friendly relations on this planet."

"Of course."

"Remember, you and Timmy are the pointmen on this assignment. If this all goes to shit, Sky will only disavow any knowledge of us."

Helia nodded. "May I make a suggestion here, Brandon? If you want involvement from the Earthlings seeing as this is their planet, I suggest that you choose with the Huntik Foundation. While I am not the one who should be sprouting moral moors, I do believe that telling the Organisation about us would be a bad idea. There is something not quite right with their methods when they tried to brainwash me."

"Alright. I'll take it into consideration. Just stay alert. Stay your course. I'll handle everything. You've been through enough with that madman. Enjoy the exhibit. And don't steal anything." Brandon left the man quietly immensely troubled about what he had seen in the other man.

000000

Dante exhaled heavily. He looked at Zhalia for some sort of comfort. He thought that she would understand his plight because of their common careers as seekers. Unexpectedly, she glared daggers at the man and when the elevator doors open, she shoved the man in. The man was so surprised at the ferocity of the woman's action that he could not even block her. He was in awe of her unexpected strength and finally saw the anger the boiling beneath her eyes.

"What is wrong with you?" she yelled fiercely. "Telling them to not come because 'they've been through enough'?" She shoved him against the wall of the elevator.

"Zhalia, what's wrong?" He was more than slightly confused about her behaviour.

"Why aren't you letting Lok and Sophie come with us?" she growled. The elevator doors closed behind her. She looked like she wanted to pick a fight.

"What do you mean 'why'? Zhalia, there is something out there killing people and we still don't know what it is," he reasoned. He had no idea what had inspired her into such anger and was unwillingly to bring the fight.

"That's not an excuse!"

"Not an excuse? They're still minors. I don't mind letting them tag along if we know what to expect, but—"

"Dante, you can take them off the mission just because we're up against something we haven't seen before. It's part of the job."

"There are a lot of nasty things about this job but they're only kids."

"'Only kids?' Oh please, Dante, I saw worst when I was their age." She pointed an angry finger into his chest.

He slapped her hand away. "No. I am not changing my mind. They are not coming."

The woman made a sound of frustration. She looked like she could rip out her hair. "Why? Why are you having this sudden change of heart? I didn't think that you were this soft."

"Zhalia, I am not cruel. I am being fair," he said evenly. He was genuinely concerned for the safety of Lok and Sophie. While he did not mind them tagging along and learning to be a seeker, he did not want to take risks with their lives.

"We are seekers! They want to be seekers! It's not cruel, it's part of the job! No one said that being a seeker would be easy. Look at Lok's dad. Look at me. Look at you, Dante Vale. You sure as hell did not do nice things in the past to the Organisation nor in your civil life!" Zhalia curled a fist and smashed it into the adjacent wall threateningly. The wooden panel did not crack but Dante knew that she was capable of much more and was glad that she had not aimed for his face. However, one thing terrified him: she was trembling, whether from anger or sadness, he was not sure.

"You're weak. The great Dante Vale is not as strong as I thought he was. He's scared because he has two kids who are scared witless," she hissed.

"Weak?" the male seeker repeated in disbelief. Why was every woman ripping his masculinity today? He could not believe his ears that such words were coming forth from this lone wolf. His masculinity questioned, the man could not help but let the nastier parts of his personality bubble to the surface. "Woman, you have no idea what I can do, or more especially, what I won't do—like tell them what happened today at the safe house."

The woman's eyes narrowed dangerously. She was ready to rip his tongue out.

"That thief came back today. She talked. She dropped enough money on me to rebuild the house and then told me to make all the seekers in the city leave before the vampire killed us all. She obviously knows more than she is letting on and she cares about the kids enough to make me believe." He relaid the words of the thief to Zhalia.

"And you believe her? Anyone can pull that dirty trick. She's guilt tripping you into bringing less people and using the money to make you believe. If she happens to be from the Organisation or one of those Specialist people, we'll just be walking into a trap!" Zhalia fumed and backed away from the man. She shook her head unable to believe what she had just heard.

The elevator doors open and she darted out swearing in various languages.

"Zhalia!" Dante followed after her hungry strides.

Without warning, she turned on her heel and hook punched the man in the jaw. Dante recoiled and leapt back a few steps unsure if she would throw a few more at him. "What was that for?"

"You're no good to this mission or this team of yours and I'm in no mood to babysit a man who is emotionally confused because a pretty woman pulled the wool over his eyes. I'm going alone. Do something stupid and I'll pretend that I don't know you and let you die," she warned. She opened the door to the hotel room with haste.

Without hesitation, Dante grabbed the woman's arm to make her listen. "Zhalia, we're doing this as a team—"

"I'm sorry, but my team consists of only me. Now, if you'll excuse me, stay out of my way." She shook off the hand on her arm and headed straight for her room. In less than a minute, she had gathered her things and was out of the room heading for the church.

In the time, Dante could only watch her. He tried to convince her otherwise but she was absolutely set on her decision. He watched her disappear behind the elevator doors. The seeker ran a hand through his long hair and swore. He returned to the hotel room and got ready to leave. He had no idea what he was going to do but he was pretty sure it would be something stupid.

* * *

><p>Happy New Year!<p> 


	6. Chapter 6: Church Arcana

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 6: Church Arcana

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

**Fore Note:** I have made corrections to the previous chapters. They are minute, mostly grammatical.

By the way, it's been a while since I got to this story. I'm doing something that I don't think has been done in the Winx Club fandom often or well, and I'm hoping the readers appreciate the twists in this chapter and the ones to come.

* * *

><p>"Trust, but verify." It was nifty quotation that Zhalia had learnt from her father Klaus while she was growing up and it was something that had stuck with her all the way through her private schooling and her university education. It went unsaid that Zhalia was brilliant. After several years in Czech Republic, she had been transferred to Sweden where she had gotten her bachelor in archaeology and ancient history at Lund University and later a masters at Cambridge University in England. She knew that nothing should be taken at face value. History was always written by the winners and never held a salt of truth. It was with this same suspicion that she decided to learn more about her new partner Helia and his history with the Organisation.<p>

The woman raged as she left the hotel. She had enough with dealing with those two kids and Dante's sugary kindness towards them. It was sickening! She was going into that church and figuring out what the nasty business with this vampire was. If she could somehow capture it and send it to Prague for her father and the Organisation, she would no doubt get some notoriety in the secret society and maybe be able to pull some strings. However, she knew she was going to need help accomplishing this. She had no idea what had happened in the aqueduct below the church the other day and with each passing minute, she worried more and more about the Suits that had been in the aqueduct that night and never sent word to the Organisation handler in Paris. Why had Helia and his two other associates, the "Specialists," been able to leave the aqueduct unscathed and not the others?

Zhalia walked around hotel and slipped the surrounding shopping centres and boutiques. She wanted to make sure that Dante was not tailing her when she did was she needed to do. She knew that the man had a lot of faith in her, but he cared too much about her well-being. She stopped in front of a window display to fix her hair, a display of femininity that no one would deny her, not even the brat Sophie. He was on her tail and she needed to lose him fast, she thought.

She stepped into a quaint café where she grabbed a dinner to go. She walked into the restaurant's kitchen ignoring curious stares and found an alternate exit in a grimy back alley. She navigated them for a bit before finding the main road and flagging down a taxi. Without delay, she was on her way to a part of Paris that the Huntik Foundation would never think to look for Organisation safe houses. Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out. Dante was calling her, but she ignored it.

Zhalia found herself in front of a picturesque chocolate shop advertising fine chocolate treats and ice cream. There were several chairs and tables arranged in the front. A couple sat outside chatting and enjoying ice cream. A chime on the door rung when Zhalia entered the small shop. No one was inside. Her nose was assaulted by the delicious smell of freshly made waffle cones. The walls were lined with pre-packaged boxes of sweets and other treats. There was a glass display to her right showing a variety of chocolates and ice cream.

"Bonjour, Zhalia," the store clerk said demurely. "It has been a long time." She was a middle-aged woman with onyx eyes and brown black hair tied in a simple queue. She wore a white apron over slacks and button up shirt. There was a quiet seriousness in her eyes that bespoke her strength. She wore a medallion around her neck on a silver chain. She was the Organisation handler in Paris.

"Yes…yes, it has." Zhalia spoke with reverence. She felt minute against this woman who had been her teacher many times in her life.

"I know why you're here, ma belle. You should know better than to come here when you're undercover."

"I made sure I wasn't followed."

"Of course, you did. I raised you to do that. I would have been severely disappointed if you hadn't."

"I want to ask you something—"

"I still keep tabs on you, Zhalia. I know what you want: information on Helia. Come in the back." The woman invited her into the kitchen the scent of the waffles was the strongest. "Tell me, do you still like peanut butter cups?" She stood at a table with a paper-lined muffin tray, picked up a bowl of melted chocolate and began pouring dark rich confectionary into the bottoms.

Zhalia refused to smile. What a childish question to ask. She ignored the question and asked one of her own. "Who is Helia?"

"I believe he is Klaus's latest experiment. The Organisation recruited him in Gardenia."

"The city with all those strange incidents from a few years ago?"

"Zhalia, something is happening in that city and it is beyond anything we or the Foundation can comprehend."

"He is one of the people who discovered he can use magic then?"

"I don't know the exact details, but he willingly joined the Organisation. It screams ulterior motives, I guarantee you. There is no prior information on him in any national database or INTERPOL. He is a stealth operative, but he was already trained when he came to us. He smells military when you look at him; definitely a mercenary. He was sent to Nanjing for six months of training and observation. Long story short, he is very good, Zhalia. Almost too good. He knows and understands magic better than even some of our best seekers in Europe. We gave him to Klaus to break him in and swear his loyalty to us."

"Does he have any titans?"

The older woman paused. "That is the most intriguing part about his character."

Zhalia listened carefully.

"His titan is called Tesoro, but I don't believe calling it titan would be correct. His titan is not inside an amulet or a ring. I never saw it for myself so I don't know how he does it, but he does not need a physical medium to summon Tesoro. It seems that he does it out of sheer will according the reports on him, Zhalia."

"He can summon a titan out of sheer will?" Zhalia repeated incredulously. "Did Klaus do that to him?"

"No, it is apparently a natural part of his gift with magic. He first did it while Nanjing in an operation. The Foundation got in the way and he chased them up the mountain and found their camp. He destroyed their camp and made them run for their lives, Zhalia…. They call him the Dragon Dancer, because Tesoro looks like a dragon. They see him as heaven-sent, but you can tell that something is not quite right with him. I think it's because of Klaus messing with his mind. Be very careful with him, ma belle. Ever since Nanjing, he has been climbing the ladder. He's part of Klaus's circle now and you know what kind man your father is."

"I know."

The older woman finished pouring the chocolate in the tray. She sighed and brought the tray to a walk-in fridge. "All of the agents that had accompanied him to the church never came back, Zhalia."

"None?" Zhalia whispered. The woman was confirming her worst fears about the night.

"None. Despite his looks and charm, it seems that Helia is a very cruel man and he does not care much about other people. Whether he was like that before Klaus broke him or not, I don't know. You're smarter than those agents who went in with him. I expect you to come back alive and in one piece, Zhalia. I didn't teach you how to just fight, but to survive."

"Oui, madame." Zhalia turned to leave the kitchen. She was heavily troubled by the revelations. "Thanks for the info. I'll see you another time." Without delay, she flagged down another taxi headed for the church.

000000

It was starting to get chilly when Zhalia approached the church. A big fat full moon was in the sky adorned with innumerable stars. The church had been locked and sealed off by the police but that did not stop Zhalia from entering it. She dodged several lines of police tape and arranged her lock pick kit. Unexpectedly, the door slammed shut loudly behind her. She jumped out of surprise and scrambled to see if the door had locked. She tried the deadbolt lock. It did not move an inch. Something was wrong. The door would not even shake on its hinges. Something supernatural was at work.

"Forget about the door. You can worry about it later."

Zhalia searched for the owner of the voice with thread. She was not surprised to see Helia sitting on an undamaged pew.

"You shouldn't be out in the clear like this," Zhalia berated. "The Foundation might come in any minute." Helia was committing a mistake that only a lowly operative would do.

He stood up, apparently having waited for quite a while. He stretched the kinks out of his neck and brushed a dark lock of hair out of his face. "Good evening to you too, Frau Zhalia," he said casually. He was obviously in no rush. "If the Foundation had come through here, I would have taken care of them."

Zhalia took in the massive damage to the interior of the church. It had been one thing to see them in photos; it was another thing to see it in person. She shivered. What horrible monster could do such damage without being noticed? The altar was destroyed to reveal the hidden chamber where the wooden trap door had been. Pews had been shattered into slivers and the crucifixion had been knocked off the wall and smashed to pieces. The floor was littered with the remnants of shredded Bibles. To the side, big fat prayer candles were still lit, probably for the vampire's recent victim.

They approached the altar and in the darkness Zhalia lit several boltflares. She was unsurprised to see that the wreckage was untouched by the police.

"Did you know that the full moon is tonight?" Helia said conversationally. "They say that this is night when a witch is at her best for casting spells and that it is the perfect for the squalid demons to come out and hunt when the moonlight makes everything clear as day."

Zhalia continued to search in the darkness. "What's your point?"

"They also say that the full moon brings out even the most insane. It seduces the darkness in our hearts and bids us to true to our emotions as a form of purification." Helia pulled out a pair of pristine white gloves adorned with sapphires on the knuckles. They seemed far from ideal for fighting gloves.

"If you're trying to scare me, I'm not impressed," she said curtly. She paused when she heard a wooden thumping on the doors. A moment later, she felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. She checked the caller ID: Dante Vale. It was a text asking where she had disappeared off to and asking if she was coming to the church.

It was probably him behind the doors. If he could not get in as easily as she had, it definitely meant that something supernatural was at work in the doors. And powerful, too. She turned off her phone and continued on.

She stood at what was once the altar and tried to gather her wits.

"Does this Dante Vale bother you so much that it distracts you from working?" Helia said snidely as he tossed the remnants of the crucifixion to the side irreverently. "I hope that this isn't love, Zhalia. Your daddy would be pretty upset if you fell in love with Foundation filth like him."

She almost cast a spell on him just to shut him up, but instead she gave him an acid look. She began to help him clear part of the area around the altar. Helia knelt to the ground with one on the ground pensively. When his face softened, Zhalia could almost forgive him for every spiteful remark he made. He looked too much like gentlemen to be part of the Organisation, but then again, she looked too much like a delicate flower to most men. She knew how deceptive and useful natural good looks could be.

"There is a spell here hiding the trapdoor," Helia said softly.

Zhalia had figured as much. She knew that Dante had come earlier to examine the hidden room.

"But the spell isn't on the floor. If this spell was recently cast to prevent us from re-entering, then there must be something that does not belong in this church right now still holding the spell in place."

The dark-haired woman looked at the man quizzically. "If it prevents us from re-entering, how did the vampire get out last night to drag in a body?"

Helia shrugged, having no answer. "The spell on the door is undeniably strong, but casting a strong spell isn't like casting a boltflare. It takes time and preparation, something I doubt the caster had."

"Then the spell has to be on an object in here that police would not have taken out by accident, like a bible or a candle. I'm guessing that the vampire didn't deliberately take the door away so that _you_ wouldn't get back down there to finish the job."

"No, but if I'm wrong, I have no doubt that it'll come out tonight either way. It came out yesterday; I don't see why it can't do it tonight again. There is one benefit to the vampire destroying the altar and the secret chamber though." The dark-haired man approached the remains of the altar with his eyes focused on the chamber. He motioned for her to follow. "There is something on the wall."

Zhalia knelt and created a spark of light in her hand shone it across the floor and wall. She shivered.

A granite gravestone was inlaid to the wall, as if the church had been built upon it. She brushed her fingers across the almost illegible letters. The stone was unnaturally cold as ice. Above the letters was image of a mermaid carved into the stone covered in frost.

_MARIE JACQVES MÉLVSINE BEAVCLERC_

_née le 13 avril 1328 _

_1347 – Chère Melusine, que Dieu vous prend de votre Enfer et vous apport au Ciel._

"She died young…" Zhalia said after a moment. "She's lucky that she didn't experience the Plague, but…why would someone build a door on someone's grave? If the intention was to keep intruders from finding the medallion, who just puts a door leading straight to it? Is it a crypt down there?" The woman turned to the other man.

"I believe it once was, but I don't think anyone has been recently buried there. The medallion wasn't in a casket. There was a hole in the wall, like a shelf."

"Did you discover this before or after all the agents died?" she said pointedly.

"Oh, please, this sort of emotion from Herr Klaus's daughter? Since when did you care? And trust me; you are no better than me when it comes to this job. The vampire doesn't take a normal form. Sometimes, it's a ghost and sometimes, it's alive. I didn't know what it was and I know better than to fight something I do not know how to beat."

"So what? You let the others distract it and die while you got away with the amulet?" Zhalia rose and stood toe to toe with the man. The light from the boltflares accentuated his angular features. There was a menacing air about him

"You would have done the same thing as me, Zhalia," he said softly. He oozed confidence.

"Like hell I would—!"

"If those agents had been Foundation seekers, I'm sure you would have let them distract the vampire while you made off with the amulet. You did several times before you went to work for Huntik," he said in a calm tone. "Zhalia, what we do is tomb raiding. Whether or not you are with the Organisation or the Huntik Foundation, it is the exact same thing and there is no honour in desecrating a body's final resting place. So don't dare start sprouting morality and that nonsense when you of all people are in no position to make such claims."

"Then why are you in the Organisation, or even part of this world, if you know better than this?" Zhalia said.

"I would think the answer is obvious."

Zhalia gritted her teeth and turned away. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. She waited for him to berate her for being so nice. Truly, she had gotten soft by being near those kids and Dante. For once in her life, she was trying to be an upstanding normal person. No, not once, but maybe the first time in a long time since she had left Amsterdam to train with her father Klaus and joined the Organisation.

"Isn't it strange that the death date is not written in the same manner as the birth date? It only lists a year and the epitaph," he said continuing to examine the gravestone carefully.

She crossed her arms and kept silent.

Without warning, there was a piercing womanly scream that punctured the silence and then the echo of howling wind reverberated.

Just then, the white mourning candles to the side extinguished. Then they felt a minute shaking and the thunderous sound of earth moving beneath their feet. Zhalia looked over to Helia curiously as they tried to survive the sudden earthquake. Centuries of accumulated dust began to fall from the rafters. The stone floor began to crack and split down the aisle of pews. The rattling chain of the defunct candle chandelier shook violently and fell in the middle of the aisle. Ice cold water began to flow from cracks in the mortar.

"I don't like this, Helia. Let's get out of here!"

"After you," he said chivalrously. The man made a move for the doors and the woman was right beside him. They scaled the breaking floor and fallen pews on uneven legs.

Right behind them, the floor began to split into a great chasm filled with water. She flow of water from the walls receded into the fierce white water bubbling below. The water was deafening as thunder and the church's stone walls began to crack from pressure threatening to collapse on itself. The mortar began to disintegrate and stone columns wobbled precariously on their bases.

Zhalia tried the deadbolt again, but the door still would not budge. "Goddamnit…."

"Zhalia, are you in there?" Dante's voice from the other side of the door was almost incoherent against the raging water and shaking foundation.

A wooden beam fell from the ceiling dangerously close to the two. The rafters began to crack from stress. Above them, moonlight spilled in from the breaking roof as the raging water rose from the chasm. Zhalia had eyed all the falling debris. Her heart pounded and she searched the room for a viable exit. The church was falling apart all around them!

"_Armourbrand!"_ she shouted as more debris began to fall. Her back was against the door.

Oh, and of course, the church is flooding, Zhalia thought. If she was not crushed by debris to her death, the water would surely do the trick. The ice cold water had reached to their knees.

"How dare you enter the sacred house of God," a female voice said. It was louder than the chaos raging inside the church. A figure began to rise from the flooding chasm. It was an elegant creature made of ice and water. She like an ice sculpture come to life. Colours bloomed across her skin, bringing her to life. She was ungodly pale. Her long wet silvery blond hair clung to her shoulders and arms and she wore a wet floor-length pale blue kirtle over a white chemise. There was a nimbus of blue light surrounding her being. A geyser of water sprouted from the chasm that reached the roof.

"Who in the hell are you?" Zhalia shouted. She could see something iridescent move behind the blonde woman.

"I am Mélusine and I shall be your destroyer, witch." The blond woman raised her arms above her summoning a monsoon above her head. Zhalia did not like this one bit.

"_In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,_" the woman chanted."_And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters._ NOW DROWN, YOU FILTHY WRETCHES!"

The tsunami of water hit them like a ton of bricks and Zhalia's armourbrand broke from the onslaught of water. The church walls toppled upon themselves and the roof broke apart down the middle. She hit the wall hard and started to see spots. She felt the familiar pain of a broken bone. She blacked out for a moment. The walls started to tumble block by block. Trapped inside the barrage of water with very little breathe, she reached in her pocket for an amulet. She felt a strong arm around waist pulling her close to a body. She saw the black fabric of a suit jacket as they breached the surface of the water.

"Zhalia, get it together!" she heard Helia yelled.

"Your pitiful spell will not keep me in the confines of God's house forever, witch boy." Zhalia looked over the surface of the water for Mélusine. She was not quite sure what she saw. Perhaps she saw a blue nymph with shimmering wings made of panes of ice. She wore a crown of white lilies and a flowing blue dress made of layers and layers of wet linen. She floated above the water with orbs of light in her hands.

Zhalia's eyes widened as Mélusine pummelled them with orbs of light. There was an explosion of energy and sound. They smashed into the wall. She felt Helia take the brunt of the attack as she hit the wall. When the light receded, Zhalia saw was the roof overhead coming down on them over Helia's shoulder.

Helia raised his hand above them. _"Eye of the storm!"_ There was a burst of air and the wind howled wildly around Helia. The water parted around their legs and the falling debris was shattered into splinters by the wind. He had created a protective barrier.

Zhalia was limp but he did not allow himself to worry yet. He could feel the magic in the church struggle to contain Mélusine and it was weakening with every moment. One more powerful spell from her and the church as well as him and Zhalia would be gone in an instant. "_Come, Tesoro!_" he howled.

His hand glowed golden and there was heart-stopping monstrous roar and the cracking of thunder. Zhalia saw an outburst of golden light, a warm soothing light, and a myriad of fires licking at them before falling unconscious.

000000

Dante Vale leapt up to the building adjacent to the church as water started to burst out of it from its windows and the bell tower. He could see it expand and contract dangerous before it exploded in a flurry of water and light. It crumbled like a house of cards. He had heard Zhalia's unmistakeable voice from inside the door and he watched it fall in fear. As it crumbled, a tower of flames erupted and he saw something he never imagined he would see.

A golden creature burst out of the wreckage and took to the air with glittering gold wings. It let out a raucous cry that made Dante shiver in fear. It had a long serpentine body like those depicted in the Orient. It flew like a flag in the wind curling and waving as it went. It was a graceful and awe-inspiring creature of unmatched beauty as it flew away and headed for…central Paris.

What mad chaos was happening inside the church?

A cloud of dust exploded from the falling building. Dante ran. He needed to get as far away from the wreckage as possible before the dust and whatever poisonous carcinogens got to him. He could hear sirens in the distance as the commune woke up.

He leapt over rooftops with the aid of his magic. He stopped and shouted, _"Armourbrand!"_ as a wall of dust and debris came at him. It almost knocked him off his feet but he resisted and kept the shield up. Minutes passed. The dust settled quietly. He looked up to see a creature of blue and white rise from the remnants of the church. It glowed with divine radiance and then two towers of water rouse around it. It was engulfed in a sphere of water and glowed with blinding blue light that matched the full moon above.

Dante had a bad feeling.

* * *

><p>Dun dun dun!<p>

I think any Catholic with the barest of knowlegde of the Bible should recognise what Mélusine said. If not...google Genesis 1:1-2, KJV. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying this read.


	7. Chapter 7: Birth of the Mélusine

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 7: Birth of the Mélusine

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

* * *

><p>Lok and Sophie sprinted down the dark hallway towards the stairwell and up to the fourth floor of their hotel. The hotel and several surrounding communes were experiencing a power outage. Outside, people could see two moons in the sky, one white and one blue. Sophie sensed the magic radiating from the blue orb in the sky. The two teens wordlessly knew that something was going on at the church. Within a few minutes, they had gathered all their titans and left their hotel room running. As for the hotel staff, they began lighting glow sticks in the corridors and at important doors.<p>

"Timmy!" Lok pounded at the researcher's door urgently.

The carrot-haired researcher answered immediately. He seemed ready to leave. He wore a fitting jumpsuit with armour padding made of various shades of blue. It looked like a uniform. On his back was a small rectangular black backpack made of sturdy material. "I know. I saw outside," he said.

"What do we do?" Both teens were ready to get moving.

"You are not going anywhere. You are staying here and helping if you can."

"What?" Lok said. "But what about Dante and Zhalia?"

"I'll go and make sure that they're fine."

"No way," Lok objected.

"Dante told us to stay here the first time and look at what happened outside. There is magic coming from that blue ball and we can't just wait for something to happen," Sophie reasoned.

Timmy looked at the teens keenly. "You're not ready to go back to fighting after what just happened with Cherit—"

"_I __don't __care!_" Sophie screamed. Lok was startled by her sudden admission. The girl shook and raged with her fist clenched at her sides. "I can't sit here and hope for everything to work out. Bad things always happen if I just wait! Never again will I allow such a thing!"

"And you, Lok?" Timmy said.

"Of course I'm going!"

"Fine then. If you want to come with me, then let's go." Timmy closed his hotel room door behind him and they made their way to the stairwell.

"Shouldn't we be going downstairs?" Lok said.

They were surprisingly heading upstairs. They approached the roof of the building but the last set of stairs was blocked off by wrought iron doors and a tangle of heavy-duty chains and padlocks.

"The streets are too chaotic," he explained. "It would takes hours to get to the church. The metro has been shut down due to the earthquakes and that means thousands of people will be on the streets causing traffic jams." The carrot-haired man knelt in front of the locks and tested their strength.

"And how do you plan to get over to the church? Running across the roofs would take just as long," Sophie said.

"Any of you know lock-picking spells?" he said shortly inspecting the locks.

"Um, no," Lok answered. Sophie answered the same.

Timmy pulled a small device of his utility belt along with what looked like a cube of putty. He seemed to be ignoring the teens as he hummed to himself. "Let's see...putty, detonator module, PHA...I think we're good."

"What are you doing?" Lok looked over the man's shoulders.

"Get to the wall and cover your ears, you two. It's going to be loud." Timmy pushed them to the farthest wall and made them huddle.

There was an explosion and they could feel the small shock waves shake their bones slightly. The explosion was so small that Lok and Sophie were sure that no one in the building had heard it.

"What was that?" Sophie gasped.

"A small explosive. Lock-picking would be too time-consuming," Timmy said casually as he fanned away some of the smoke and debris off the wrought iron gate. Lok and Sophie's ears rang and they were more than slightly confused. The chains were hot but they soon cooled down and Timmy entangled them from the bars. Soon, the door was open. "Let's go."

The teenagers looked at each other incredulously, wondering if it was really safe to be with him. They stood up and followed after him up the stairs.

"So you just...casually...carry bombs with you...?" Sophie said as they reached the roof. They were met with the humid night air and the sounds of a panicked city with sirens going off in the distance.

"'Bomb' is not a nice word, but yes, I do. It's very handy."

"So what now?" Lok said as he took in the panorama of the city. The wind howled and ruffled his blond hair.

"This is the part where I get rid of you two."

"What?" Sophie said in surprise.

"What?" Timmy smiled rather ominously.

"Stop that, Timmy," a fourth voice said. It was masculine and deep.

"It was a joke." The bespectacled man rolled his eyes.

The teens looked for the owner of the new voice apprehensively and stepped away from Timmy. A dark-skinned man stood near the edge of the roof with his hands in his pocket. He wore dark jeans and a white think under an unbuttoned purple dress shirt. His waist-length dark hair was braided with beads of gold and silver. He was an imposing figure.

"Who are you?" Lok asked.

The man ignored the question and approached Timmy. "What do you think you're doing bringing them here?"

"Hey, hey, I'm not the only one who'll be in trouble here."

"Timmy, you're bringing kids to a fight."

"We were barely older then them when we went to Shadowhaunt and fought Darkar's shadow lupi. Well, you weren't there but you get the point."

The dark-skinned man sighed. "We have training specifically for this sort of situation; we have advanced magic and technology; we know how to deal with magical creatures—such as that thing in the sky!" He pointed to the blue orb over Paris. "We can't let two normal kids come with us."

Timmy made a pointing gesture towards them. "We were much like them when we fought Valtor. It was stupid on our part to think we could even fight him and despite our mistakes, we made it out alright. I doubt very much that that thing in the sky is hell-bent on stealing all the magic in the world and conquering the universe."

"We're on Earth! There are still a lot of people angry about what the Black Circle did. They're the cause of most of the problems on this planet! Remember when Nebula went rogue?"

"Then who are we to interfere with Earth's business after the fact? Sure, we're doing clean up but that does not mean we have to solve every crisis they can't handle. Helia and I could just walk around picking up the priority items and be on our merry way to Magix, but that isn't happening anytime soon. Who better to deal with Earth's problems then the Earthlings themselves? Rebuilding the world isn't going to be easy. They need us to help them. You did more than your share of being too nice to the Earthlings on our first assignment here."

The dark-skinned man's shoulders lowered slightly. "I know, and I hope that it happens to no one else."

"Then let me bring them and let's go," Timmy urged.

Nabu turned to the teenagers who stood gobsmacked.

"Um, speak French, Italian or English, please?" Sophie said to the two men bewildered. Lok had an equally confused look on his face.

All the two teens had seen and heard was two men argue first in French and then in a language that was completely unintelligible and unrecognizable to them.

"We're going to that church and meeting the others," the dark-skinned man said.

"Who are you exactly? Did Guggenheim send you?"

"No, I am not part of your organisation or part of his for that matter." He pointed at Timmy. "My name is Nabu."

"He likes being called High Wizard Nabu," Timmy said conspiratorially.

"Shut it. You know very well that I don't like that name." Without warning, a long golden staff appeared in Nabu's hand and he pointed it at Timmy rather menacingly. At the end of the staff was a violet crystal ornately set in gold. The staff oozed magic and power and it made the two teenagers nervous. The man had summoned it to his hand without a word; something that was not quite easily possible as far as they understood magic.

"Shall we go?" Timmy suggested.

"How exactly do you plan on getting us to there?" Lok asked.

"Magic, obviously."

"Wait—!" Lok stuttered.

Nabu waved his hand in a circle. They saw tribal tattoos glow on his arms and before they knew it, they were gone in a flash of light.

000000

Dante let down his armourbrand spell long after the dust had begun to settle. The dust was indistinguishable from smoke and the City of Light was obscured from the seeker's eyes. Or perhaps the city's electric grid had been shut down. He was surrounded by destruction and chaos. Sirens rang shrilly like banshees and people soon began to wonder streets like lost souls. Above it all was the blue orb in the sky made of water.

The man's mind was a whirl of fear and confusion. Where could he start to fix this problem? Should he contact the headquarters in Spain and England? How could anyone survive this disaster in the heart of Paris? Could Zhalia survive the destruction of the church?

Suddenly, all Dante could think of was the survival of the mysterious dark-haired woman. His heart faltered to think that she could perish in such a human way. She was an enigma of her own, and for once in his career as a seeker, he felt no need to solve it. He understood that there was a necessary darkness to her. Lord knew that he had some of his own that he would not easily admit to having, so he had no right to pry.

He raced back to the collapsed building. All he saw were piles of shapeless masonry and wood in waist-high water. The remaining pieces of the foundation were much like little islands of stone in the flooded street.

His heart pounded wildly. He knew without a doubt that Zhalia had been inside the building when the earthquakes had begun. He knew the spine-chilling pitch of her voice when she cast spells in the heat of battle.

That golden dragon that had escaped from the building was sure as hell not her King Basilisk or Gareon. He had never seen such a titan and by the looks of it, it was surely a powerful one. How did such a massive being escape the Foundation's notice?

The seeker leapt down onto the debris and looked about hopelessly.

"Dante!"

The man jumped in surprise. He turned to see Sophie and Lok making their way to him.

"What are you two doing here?"

"We came to help," Sophie said.

"Where's Zhalia?" Lok asked.

"I don't know. She was in the church but..." The man looked desperately at the rubble around them.

"I can tell you right now that there is no one under that mess," a new voice said.

Timmy and a dark-skinned individual approached the Huntik team.

Dante first looked to the kids and then Timmy and the stranger. "Timmy, who is he?" the older man said warily. Something in the way the researcher held himself put Dante on edge. It was as if he was looking at new person. The meek researcher had disappeared. He then turned to the stranger. He could sense that the dark stranger radiated power. In his hand was an ornate staff that clearly indicated it was a supernatural artifact, like his titan amulets.

"My name is Nabu," the dark stranger said. "And I assure you that no one is under the rubble."

"How can you tell?" Dante asked.

"Trust him, I can vouch for his judgement," Timmy said. "I think we have bigger problems to worry about." He pointed to the sky.

"And we don't have time to waste," a voice said from behind.

Sophie and Lok gasped when they saw the familiar green glow in the darkness. Two men approached the group. They were dressed in a uniform similar to Timmy's. Dante glanced at the strangers surrounding the Huntik team.

"You!" Sophie shouted.

"Hello, missy," Brandon greeted with a smile.

"The two kids from the other night," Riven said. "Small world."

Sophie gritted her teeth. "Who are you people?"

"My name is Brandon and this is Riven," the brunet pointed out. He held a glowing green sword in his hand. It was notably massive but he carried it with ease.

Dante knew immediately that these were the two that Lok and Sophie had described. He looked over to Timmy and Nabu apprehensively. They were effectively cornered. "Who are you? And what do you want with us? You already have the medallion."

"We are the Specialists and I am the leader of this motley group of gentlemen. Except for Nabu. He's here as a consultant of sorts." Brandon was rather careful of his choice of words.

"I'm going to help you deal with her nonetheless." The dark man pointed to the sphere of water.

"'Her?'" Dante repeated.

"Most definitely female and very angry. She is gathering her magic for something big." Nabu spoke with the wisdom and seriousness that sent chills done everyone's spines.

"It would take too long to evacuate the commune," Brandon said thinking rapidly.

"That doesn't mean we still can still fight it. It could destroy the city with us in it. We don't even know what it is exactly," Riven said.

"We don't have a choice. We'll have to fight it here until backup comes in."

"Backup? We have backup?" Riven said incredulously. Dante noted that perhaps the young man had expected no backup of any sort. He was more than confused about the current conversation. He had expected them to consider somehow collect the blue orb in the sky, not care for the welfare of the city.

"I'm going to call in a favour. In the meantime, Timmy, find out where Helia is and get him over here," the brunet Specialist ordered.

"Helia is here now, actually."

Brandon looked up to the sky. There was a flash of white and gold that passed by them stirring up the dust and debris. It had been like a flash of lightning. A sinuous gold dragon landed on the remains of the church flapping its great wings. It was silent and beautiful possessing the unexpected elegance of an art piece. Its scales shone like stars in the darkness of the night and its golden eyes were all-seeing suns. A man wearing a once neatly pressed now dusty suit and tie hopped off the dragon's ornate leather saddle.

Helia approached the group.

Dante regarded the golden dragon and then Helia critically. Unbridled fury boiled in him. "You were in the church when it collapsed, weren't you?" Dante accused.

"Perhaps," he said enigmatically.

"Don't lie. I saw that dragon leave the church. Where's Zhalia?" the seeker almost roared. Lok and Sophie jumped in surprise.

The long-haired man held his hands up defensively. "Zhalia is alive and safe. I put her somewhere where she can rest from her ordeal. I'll bring her to you later." He combed his long hair out of his face.

"So what happened in the church then?" Brandon asked, intervening before Dante could do something rash.

"The 'vampire' is not a vampire. Her name is Marie-Jacques Mélusine Beauclerc. She calls herself Mélusine. She was born in 1328 and died in 1347." Helia turned to the Specialists. "I believe you can guess what happened, can't you? Her gravestone was hidden in the wall behind the altar and her grave was tampered with, most likely by our old friends of the Black Circle. She has a grudge against witches."

"And?" Riven said expectantly. "What about the woman?"

"She is a fairy."

"That would explain the heavy dark magic in the air then," Nabu said.

"So what does any of this mean exactly?" Lok asked. So far, Lok, Sophie and Dante could only watch the Specialists discuss the current situation with very little understanding. They knew that there was much more going on, but it seemed asking questions at that particular moment would only be a detriment to the current situation.

"It means that we cannot fight the living dead. We could, but we would never be able to permanently deal with it."

"So it's a ghost?"

"That is the best summation. Since it is dead, we can only help it find peace and guide it to the next world."

"And how do we do that?" Sophie asked. She was shivering in fear at the thought of dealing with the dead.

"I don't think we'll be able to help her since she had been dead for so long. It's been seven hundred years after all."

Above them, the watery orb began to freeze into solid ice. Ribbons of vapour slipped out of it. It made the distinct sound of ice cracking and shifting as it slowly froze over.

"That does not sound good," Lok said.

Unexpectedly, a body of ice slid off the orb and fell right beside them, splashing them with ice-cold water and shards of deadly ice. Even more pieces of ice began to fall and everyone scrambled to dodge the pieces. The golden dragon growled in surprise breathing fire and Helia raced to the beast before she took off.

"Nabu, get us out of here!" Brandon yelled.

"On it!" The dark-skinned man waved is staff and everyone disappeared in a flash of violet light.

The next thing they knew, they found themselves on the roof of a four-storey building disorientated and wet. They were some distance away from the church and they could see the blue orb of light freeze.

They all turned to the orb in the sky. It had become white in colour and it was blindingly bright. Helia and the golden dragon circled above the sphere in the distance.

"Here. Take this. We can stay in touch with them." Timmy handed the seekers wireless communication ear pieces. They looked much like Bluetooth headsets, and probably once were, except they seemed to be heavily modified. "Can you hear me?" his voice said in their ear pieces.

Then Helia's wind-swept voice filled everyone's ears, seekers and Specialists. "It's cracking."

"No shit, Helia," Riven replied rather snidely.

"I'm sorry. Let me rephrase that: oviparous birth, you jerk."

"When did he get so nasty?" Riven said to Brandon. "He's almost like me."

"Only more eloquent," Timmy added.

Nabu regarded the two Specialists incredulously. "Riven, I would be more disturbed by the fact that something is being born."

Dante adjusted the volume on his ear piece and went to stand near Brandon. He did not dare disrupt the Specialists' strange social dynamic. He could tell that they had know each other a while, perhaps years, and that such banter was normal between them. On the other hand, Brandon did not join in. He seemed to be concentrating on the situation at hand. "I'm guessing the next step is to wait and see what's being born," Dante said.

The seeker had gone through a whirlwind of emotions in the last hour. How he pushed on while keeping his sanity in check was a miracle but his training from his previous life before joining the seekers helped him push on.

"Yes," Brandon said. The brunet crossed his arms. "Let her make the first move. In the meantime, since we have a name, Timmy is checking out everything he can about her."

Dante regarded Timmy, who sat some distance away staring at a holographic projection on his lap. The hologram was much better in quality to the ones used in a holotome. "You're definitely not from around here, are you?"

"Farther than you can possibly imagine."

The sphere was hatching. Visible cracks began to appear on the white orb. Every crack sent shivers up their spines. Clouds of cold air escaped the forming cracks and white light shone through. There was a hum in the air that rose to a crescendo. Finally, a layer of ice at the top of the shape shattered and crashed to the ground like a fragment of an eggshell. It was like breaking glass.

A pointed object protruded. It was snout-like and mist erupted from its mouth.

More ice began to fall and reveal a serpentine body with glittering diamond-like scales. The head slipped out of the shell tentatively. It had the innocence of a newborn hatchling. It regarded the city pensively.

Then it let out a resounding roar that shook the city. The eggshell of ice shattered into millions of pieces and hailed down on the commune.

"_Honourguard!"_

"_Armourbrand!" _

The seekers raised barriers to protect themselves from the ice. Nabu raised magical shield over the specialists. When the storm ended, they looked up with wide eyes to see a macabre white dragon soar in the sky. Its size was beyond imagining. It was a terrifying chimera with a body comparable to the Seine River with several undersized wings and a spine of sapphire scales protruding off its back.

"Oh my God, what is that?" Sophie cried out. She fell to her knees trembling in fear.

"How are we going to beat that thing?" Riven asked incredulously.

"We're going to need to get to higher ground," Dante said to Brandon. "We won't be able to keep it up if it keeps hailing like this."

"Nabu, can you bring us to the top of the tower over there?" Brandon pointed in a certain direction.

"Of course." The wizard motioned with his staff. There was another violet flash of light and suddenly, it became windy and cold.

"Where are we?" Sophie asked to no one in particular. No one needed to answer question. A quick look outside confirmed that they were at the top of the Eiffel Tower. They were on the third floor of the tower, standing 276 meters above the ground. The floor was devoid of tourists. It seems that the management had safely evacuated the tower. They could see Mélusine coil her body in the air.

A few minutes later, Helia joined them at the top. The golden dragon coiled herself in the metal structure. Brandon had carved out some of the metal bars with his green sword (it seemed capable of cutting much more than metal) and let Helia in. Everyone gathered to discuss the situation.

"So what's the plan?" Timmy asked.

"We're definitely underpowered if we face that thing head on," Brandon said. "We'll have to be clever about it."

"I have an idea, but it's risky and it'll take some time," Nabu said. "I can seal her into her grave, but I need you guys to buy some time while I prep the spell."

"Absolutely not," Brandon rejected. "I am not going to watch you fall into another coma."

"What other choice do we have?"

"Can we communicate with her?" Dante suggested. "Last I checked, speaking with a ghost is still an option, and we avoid fighting her at the same time."

"My fear is that she isn't lucid enough for conversation. There is the risk that her mind has deteriorate so much that she might not understand us," Brandon said. "It'll still end with us fighting."

"It's the only plan we've got that doesn't begin with a frontal assault," Timmy reminded. "We need to act now."

Brandon exhaled heavily and regarded everyone carefully. He have great burden to bear, the lives of everyone as well as the welfare of the city of Paris. "Fine. Here's the plan: Nabu, get to the church. Lok, Sophie, I want you two to watch his back in case something happens and help him with the magic if you can. Timmy, Riven, Helia, you're going with Dante to talk to our new lady friend, Mélusine. I expect that you would be best suited for speaking with her than us, Dante. If she is cooperative, maybe we can figure something out from there. If not, draw her to the church. Nabu, radio us if you need anything and tell us when you're ready to seal her."

Everyone nodded and prepared to leave. Nabu left with Sophie and Lok in the same flash of violet light. Dante realised that it must have been some sort of advanced teleportation magic from wherever the Specialists came from. The older man regarded Brandon gravely. "And you?" Dante asked. "What are you going to do?"

"I have to take care of some things, but first, come with me to the top."

Brandon and Dante climbed to the top of the observation deck where the golden dragon laid after Riven, Timmy and Helia. Helia approached the creature, mounted her and took off into the sky. The remaining three Specialists and one seeker stood in the heavy and wind looked at each other uneasily.

"How exactly did you imagine me to speak to Mélusine?" Dante shouted in the strong wind to Brandon.

Riven and Timmy both raised an arm up with their hands wide open, ignoring Dante and Brandon's conversation.

"_Come, Quilate!"_

"_Time to get to work, Rouge!"_

Timmy's palm glowed yellow while Riven's glowed red. Dante could sense magic radiating from the Specialists. There was thunderous clap and a flash of red and yellow lightning that blinded Dante for a moment. His eyes widened as he saw two more dragons, very similar in shape to Helia's golden one, appear right in front of Timmy and Riven. Riven's red dragon regarded Dante curiously, perhaps even suspiciously. It was evidently more intelligent than he thought it to be and it exhaled its hot breath dangerously. Riven regarded the red dragon as if to scold it silently and the dragon returned its attentions to the red-haired Specialist. A moment later, Riven and Timmy mounted the beautiful beasts and took off into the air.

"I didn't realise Timmy could do that," Dante commented. As far as he knew from Timmy's profile, Timmy had only been hired as a researcher and he had never displayed any sort of magical affinity.

"Timmy isn't a seeker or wizard. We have been bonded to these dragons for years. It's a much more powerful and dangerous bond than the one you have with your titans." Brandon showed the seeker his gloved hand. Through the fabric, Dante could see a green glowing symbol: a triquetra. "This mark is a symbol of my bond to Yseult. _To __me,__Yseult!_"

Brandon held up a hand. There was no colourful light show. At first, Dante had thought he was hallucinating. Two golden eyes appeared to be staring at him, then he saw the narrow snout and felt hot air ruffle his hair. A dark green dragon began to fade out of the darkness of the night, like a chameleon undoing its colourful camouflage. "This is Yseult."

Yseult raised herself unto the roof of the observation deck and regarded Brandon and then Dante. "There is a psychic link between the dragon and the tamer that requires no words. It's a second consciousness in the mind that is much more feral than ours. For now, she will permit you to ride her to go speak to Mélusine, but don't let her overcome you. You must be firm and unmoving."

"You want me to ride her?" Dante said incredulously.

"Yes."

Yseult brought her head forward towards Dante challenging him. He lifted up a hand to her like he would to a horse and she touched him with her snout. Dante froze as he felt an immense consciousness fill him from head to toe. It was visceral yet understanding and gentle. It was like a second presence in his body. The new mind poked curiously at his memories making him shudder. He remembered Brandon's advice, finally understanding what he had meant, and he firmly established that the dragon was not welcomed to peruse his past.

"This is a momentary bond that dragons share with others. You won't be able to see what she sees or anything like that but she will keep you safe from Mélusine and keep you mobile."

"And what about you?" Dante asked. "You realise that I'm trusting you without knowing anything about you."

"Yes, but I don't have anything against the Foundation or the Organisation. I didn't plan on any of this happening. Now, I have to find someone. Good luck, Mr Vale." Brandon seemed in a hurry to leave.

"I'm expecting some answers after this."

"Of course." Brandon pulled a small green disk out from one of his myriad of pockets. He dropped it to the floor and it expanded into a green surfboard of sorts. It levitated in front of the Specialist. He stepped on it. The board did not shudder under his weight. It seemed to be a hoverboard of some sort; Dante had heard of such fictional technologies before. With a kick off the deck, Brandon plunged down the side of the Eiffel Tower. He raced off into the blackened city of Paris.

Dante was more than suspicious of Brandon's need to be vague. He mentioned finding someone but he could not imagine why. He hoped he was not running from the probably fight that would follow.

Without warning, Yseult growled in displeasure. Dante felt the pressure of the second consciousness in his mind admonishing him for such distrustful thoughts about Brandon. He could sense the wordless trust she had for him. She also urged him to mount her so that they could face Mélusine, quite aware of the situation. He suspected that she supplied him with the knowledge of how to mount the plain brown saddle on her back. Her body twisted like a snake as they made a round about the observation deck and he tried to adjust his seat in her. Never in his life did he imagine he would do something as crazy as riding a dragon to speak with an even bigger dragon.

He felt the nudge of a question about flying in his mind, and before he could understand what she was asking, she took off into the humid Parisian air heading for Mélusine.

* * *

><p>I've begun watching season two of Huntik. It's strange to hear Lok's new voice and I'm not a fan of the Fears twins yet.<p>

My biggest problem is the fact that they used an orphanage as a setting. The problem is that in today's modern world (specifically North America and Europe), orphanages have become a relic of past due to the efficient bureaucracy we have developed in the last century thanks to the wars we've had. If I'm not mistaken, most orphanages have been de-institutionalised. Orphaned children are sent to their closest relatives, put up for adoption or put into foster care. There only remaining orphanages (as far as I know) are in the former Soviet Union countries, Africa and parts of the Caribbean. I'm willing to suspend my belief for Zhalia, who was taken away from the orphanage by Klaus, because historically, it's still possible. For the Fears twins, I find it unacceptable that they were put in an orphanage by the writers. Why not just make them runaways from the fostercare system? _Hell, it's Amsterdam!_


	8. Chapter 8: Ancient and Bad Magic

**Mission Interrupted**

Chapter 8: Ancient and Bad Magic

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Huntik: Secrets and Seekers or Winx Club. They both belong to Rainbow.

* * *

><p>The all-consuming darkness of the night was constricting. Parts of Paris were blackened to the supernatural occurrences involving the seekers and mysterious men called Specialists. At the same time, the engulfing darkness was a reminder of the rare beauty of the night sky, the moon reigning like a queen of the night over her subjects, the distant stars.<p>

Yseult was more than gentle as she danced in the air with the wind rushing Dante's face. Dante was still new to the idea of riding a dragon and sharing a psychic bond with it. Yseult had beige white scales but her wings and leathery spines were a dark soothing forest green. She seemed to blend in with the colours of the darkened Paris. It was difficult to believe that below them was the City of Light. The seeker began to predict when to lean forward and back as Yseult's long serpentine body swirled in the air. Perhaps she was supplying the information to him in the same way that she mentally whispered for him to be calm as they flew.

Ahead of them floating on the air was the largest creature Dante had ever laid eyes on, titan or otherwise. It was Mélusine. She had emerged from the confines of the church, enveloped in an eggshell of ice and water. She had metamorphosed from a woman to a macabre white dragon large as the Seine within an hour. She was an amalgamation of wings and spines, ethereal beauty and sheer horror. She had the flat round head of snake and two large ivory fangs protruded from her scaly lips. Her eyes were the size of doors and green in colour.

Behind him, he could see Helia, Riven and Timmy mounted on their dragons flanking him. Truly, he had never imagined he would be doing something as unreal as riding a dragon.

Dante adjusted the communicator in ear. "Is there anything that I should know about Mélusine? You seem to know much more than you let on and it looks like you've been doing this for years."

"It's a long story, but a long, long, long time ago, there used to be fairies on Earth. In 1346, during the Plague, a group of wizards called the Black Circle went around capturing fairies for their magic in the same way that you have titans in your amulets," Timmy explained rather hastily.

"Except, it was much worst than you can imagine," Helia said. "The Black Circle stripped them of their powers and sent them into limbo-like prison called the Abyss. A fairy's magic is much more powerful than ours, but unfortunately, much more transient and therefore easy to steal. A witch's magic is bound to her soul, a fairy's isn't."

Dante did not have much time to accept the nonsense that the Specialists were trying to feed him. He had not doubt that it was very much a bad lie, but he was willing to accept it if it meant that they could help get rid of Mélusine. "And Mélusine is a fairy?"

"Yes, she seems to be a fairy of water. She is like a Greek nymph, a protector of a lake or river and bound to it from birth. She is human in terms of birth and personality but she is likely bound to an element that gives her power. I supposed the best way to phrase it is that she is the physical and conscious manifestation of nature in human form; a demigod."

"I'm dealing with a god?"

"She is very much killable, if that's what you're asking," Riven interjected quickly. "We're only calling her a demigod because that is the best way to describe her in your language."

"Another word would be 'avatar,' a deity in mortal form," Timmy said. "Mélusine is human, but she carries a second consciousness that binds her to whatever her element is. It's like the bond with a dragon, but different. We keep our consciousnesses separate and distinct; a fairy doesn't. She becomes symbiotic with the voices of nature."

Dante's mind was muddled with the new information. He struggled to understand what the Specialists were going on about. It was completely beyond anything he knew about fairies and witches and according to the Specialists, it seemed that this reality they described was the true history of the fairies and witches. Admittedly, it was mind-boggling their imagination.

"So why am I talking to Mélusine, and not you?"

"She'll know that we aren't from here and turn on us if we talk to her too long," Timmy said.

"I bet that there is more to that than you let on, Timmy," Dante said. "I'm being used in this plan."

"Yes...there is more," the researcher hesitated. "We have other reasons, but we're not doing this with malice, Dante. I know trusting and me, Helia and Riven is difficult right now, but please, believe me. We aren't your enemies. We never wanted something like this to happen."

He had figured they were using him somehow, but he was still not pleased to find out that he was a pawn in this scheme.

"Then what happened the night Lok and Sophie went in to get medallion? Zhalia and I had blacked out that night," Dante asked.

"We have the medallion, the Organisation doesn't," Riven said. "Helia had brought those lackeys of his from the Organisation and they fought Mélusine. At the time, she was just a water spirit and she didn't speak. Me and Helia got the medallion out. When we got out of the aqueduct, we saw Brandon talking with the kids. He was supposed to be outside watching the doors."

"And all those Suits that had come with you?"

"Most of them were already dead or beyond saving when we finished extracting the medallion," Riven said.

There was a long silence in their comm links.

Over the last few hours, Dante began to understand were part of bigger political entity, not just some paramilitary outfit. They seemed to be extremely conscious of a tenuous relationship with Earth. They were definitely not from Earth, but certain pieces of information eluded him from completely understanding who the Specialists were. He still could not deny the fact that something about Helia irritated him in particular. Maybe it was just because he worked with the Organisation, or perhaps because he had been in the church with Zhalia when it had collapsed. (His mind was obviously still worried about the dark-haired woman.)

"Dante." Helia interrupted Dante's thoughts. "Mélusine is a zealot. She is intent on destroying witches. The possibility that she will turn on us is likely. I don't know for certain, but she probably has suffered a psychotic breakdown and has lost touch with reality. Elle est insensible."

"Then the best we can hope for is that we stall her until your friend's spell is prepared."

"Remember, we are here if something happens," Helia reassured. He almost sounded caring and protective for a moment. Dante was at the very least surprised to hear such compassion from an Organisation Suit.

Yseult swerved sharply as they came into Mélusine's view. Mélusine regarded them with unblinking serpentine green eyes. Yseult and Dante were worms compared to her. She let out an icy hiss. "Witches!" her voice echoed in the dead night.

Dante shivered. His heart pounded. He could hear the unspeakable hate in her words. He could sense Yseult's uneasiness. "Mélusine Beauclerc!" Dante shouted. "Enough of this. I'm here to talk. I am Dante Vale of the Huntik Foundation."

"The words of a witch are meaningless; all lies. I do not care for the names of blasphemers."

"What do you think you're doing, Mélusine?"

"I am going to destroy you, and then all the witches, as it should been since the beginning. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." She was obviously quite delusional.

The seeker almost forgot to breathe. He was rooted in fear in his place, but at the same time, the chivalrous and fair part of him could not stand to let Mélusine have her way. Her hate was all-encompassing, even thick in the magic that floated on the air around her.

"Is this what you call a solution?" he challenged. "The Lord said to Moses, 'Thou shalt not kill,' at the top of Mount Sinai in sight of all the Israelites fleeing Egypt."

"What reason do you witches deserve to live?" she shrieked indignantly. "I was tricked into marriage with a warlock and left for dead in a well while you witches built a church over my grave! You turned me into a monster so I could protect your damn witch treasure. The Bible says that one should be generous to the unfortunate. Why was I left in that church to feed on the blood of the innocent and become a demon? No one helped me; instead, everyone forgot me."

Dante thought carefully about his response. "We can help you now if you give us the chance. We are not like the ones who imprisoned you, not all witches are."

"LIES!" she screamed. Spears of ice formed from the clouds of mist and flew at the dragons and their riders.

Yseult dove sharply to avoid an ice lance. Far from diplomatic, Dante thought.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him," she accused. Another volley of ice lances formed and flew at them.

Yseult dived gaining momentum before ascending to the sky above Mélusine.

"She is too far gone," Riven yelled.

"Then a fight it is," Dante said. Yseult growled in pleasure at the idea, making Dante worry. He was also limited to only his titans that could fly._"__Ariel!__"_ the seeker summoned.

There was an unnatural whirl of cool wind and the rustling of leaves. In the dark of night, a tall ghost-like figure with blond hair wearing green and brown robes appeared. There was an eternal peacefulness to his face. Ariel floated to the side right beside Yseult. For a moment, there was a flash of curiosity pointed towards the dragon before it returned to its usual angelic blank face.

Dante looked down to macabre white dragon below and saw a flash of red before Mélusine let a glass-shattering shriek. Riven and his dragon Rouge had dived recklessly and aimed for one of her eyes in an attempt to blind her.

She opened her monstrous mouth to reveal deadly teeth sharp as broken glass and let out another volley of ice spears in a random direction in retaliation.

Dante could hear Yseult's suggestion in his head as he urged her to dive before the volley ended. A plan formed between them. They glided to the right. "_Touchram!_" Dante shot the spell and several more right into her mouth in passing and Ariel mirrored them tossing blasts of energy on the left. Yseult made a full circle back, Dante half-understanding what the dragon was planning. Yseult let out a terrifying roar heading for Mélusine's and shot a jet of searing blue flames into the beast's mouth before they plunged down towards the city.

Mélusine shrieked even louder. "Damned witches!"

"_Cutting __wind!__"_ Helia cast.

Dante watched curiously as Helia unleashed his spell. It was a horizontal wave of air imbued with the sharpness of thousands of swords. They hit Mélusine directly in the face. The seeker's only warning that stray winds were about to hit him was the brief almost invisible edge of magic in them. He felt a wayward one fly past him and Yseult. The seeker was impressed with the long-haired Specialist's fine control, then he realised that he was impressed by an Organisation Suit. What was wrong with him? Dante rejoined the other Specialists.

Mélusine recoiled in the air, helplessly screaming against her attackers. She exhaled loudly and a thick fog appeared out from mouth and nostrils.

Timmy and his dragon Quilate regarded the mist carefully. Their fixed gaze betrayed the plan brewing in their minds. There was a quiet determination in them that made Dante and Yseult worry. Quilate descended closer to the mist before opening her great maw and roared shooting blue lightning from her mouth. The mist lit up like fireworks.

Dante regarded the golden dragon in surprise. A dragon that breathed lightning; that was something he would have never imagined. Yseult growled uneasily, nervous about the lightning.

000000

Lok and Sophie took a moment to reacquaint themselves with their surroundings as Nabu's violet light faded away. The two seekers and Nabu found themselves at the site of the collapsed church where the whole mess had started. All that was left standing was the western wall where the altar had been but even that seemed fragile enough to fall.

"So what do we do?" Lok asked the wizard. The blond seeker summoned a boltflare in his hand to shed some light.

"We clear the area and find the gravestone that Helia told us about. Evidently, that medallion they took was a crucial element to whatever kept Mélusine here and in check."

"We'd better hurry. It's not going to be easy clearing the debris. _Bubblelift!_" Sophie said. The remains of the roof floated in the air and moved it to the side. She concentrated hard to keep it afloat.

Nabu made a motion with his hand and the debris rose up in the air enveloped in a nimbus of violet light. Nabu directed the stones to the side of an adjacent building and piled them up nicely. They moved all the debris in neat heaps clearing a way through what used to be the interior of the church. Lok worked on the right side of the church while Sophie work on the left and Nabu in the middle.

"How are you casting the spells without speaking?" Lok asked. He was starting to break a sweat. He saw that the dark-skinned wizard had an easier time than he and Sophie did moving the debris.

"I'm a master wizard. I've trained for years," Nabu said. "This place still reeks of dark magic," the wizard complained. He dodged the chasm in the middle of the floor and headed towards where the altar used to be. "Let's get rid of this water." The water had already started to recede back into the chasm and into the sewers at a slow pace. With a flick of his wrist, the water began to move faster in small streams towards the chasm. "And lastly, before anyone falls into the gap, let's fill it up."

The water level in the chasm began to rise but it changed colour and harden at the same time, like gelatin in a mold. It stopped rising when it was level with the floor and hardened completely. It was made of a magenta coloured crystal-like substance and it was smooth as glass. Lok experimentally put his foot on it to see if it was solid. Indeed, it was.

"What is this?" the blond seeker asked.

"Morphix, a crystallised water construct that can be used to make anything, but only temporarily. I don't want anyone falling into it and breaking their neck."

Sophie bit her lower lip. She had her reservations about working with a complete stranger. She was already more than angry and disappointed about Timmy being in cahoots with that Suit Helia and the other Specialists. "Timmy called you 'High Wizard Nabu' before. What did he mean by that?" Sophie asked.

"It's a title given to me by my people. Don't worry. I'm not going to act like a snooty noble and ask you to call me 'Your Excellency.' I'm not much for clout anyways. Title isn't an indicator of richness of character."

"When this is all over, could you teach us some of those spells?" Lok asked.

"If the opportunity presents itself. How long have you been practising magic?"

"Well, I only just started this summer."

Sophie was more hesitant to speak, simply out of humility, but she could not hide the pride in her voice. "I've trained...well, my whole life."

Nabu smiled. "That must be some type of cruel irony. I guess that you, Lok, are destined to save the world. And you, miss Sophie, are not."

"What? What is he talking about?" Lok said to Sophie.

Nabu chuckled. "I'm joking, Lok. It's been my experience that the Fates favour the dramatic."

The wizard stepped up to where the altar used to be and cleared the debris off the floor. "And here is the gravestone. Tell me, can you sense the power in here?"

"I…I can," Sophie said. A dark aura had been hanging over the area like an invisible heavy fog. It was the first time she had ever sensed an aura so cruel and evil. "It wasn't here before. It feels like…something nasty, like spiders crawling on your skin."

The two seekers approached the gravestone still embedded in what was left of the wall. If only they had seen it earlier the first night they came to the church, perhaps things would have turned out differently. As Dante had noted, their flighty wooden trapdoor that had led them to the aqueduct below was gone.

"It's the remnants of ancient and bad magic. Let's clear it out before we lay down any new spells in this place. Something nasty might come out when we exorcise it. Come here." The man fished a precious green glass bottle from a pouch at his belt. He pulled out the stopper.

The scent of the ocean filled their noses. They could smell the salt in the sea and fell the humidity of the air.

Lok breathed in the scent greedily. It was a heaven-sent scent. "What is that?"

"This is fairy dust from the fairy of waves. It can break most dark spells and heal light wounds. It'll keep most of the influence of dark magic off of you and keep your head clear." Nabu poured a glowing white dust into his hand before dropping the dust on top of their heads.

Lok and Sophie felt a warm magic enshroud them. It washed them from head to toe, making them feel light on their feet. It made feel all the more intrepid about what they were going to do. Nabu replaced the bottle of fairy dust in his pocket. He placed the end of his staff on the ground and suddenly, the earth was alive with pure power. The magic take root in the earth beneath them.

For someone like Lok who had never sensed magic before, he was more than overwhelmed by the wizard's power. It was like his sixth sense was rudely awakened with a bucket of cold water and then forced into a scalding hot shower.

The tribal tattoos on Nabu's arms glowed and he radiated a nimbus of radiant light. He whispered words that were foreign to their ears, part song part command. On the ground below them, blood red sigils appeared. Lok recognised the ancient astrological and alchemical symbols as well as runes and words from long dead languages scattered across the ground.

Unnatural black flames rose from the ground like geysers, but the heat they radiated was blisteringly cold. It was a cold hellish place with fountains of black flames everywhere. Sophie shivered. She was far from appropriately dressed.

"Hello, hello, _hello..._" a smooth and malicious voice said.

A great tower of black and blue flames appeared before them.

Lok felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as sensed a great and devastatingly black power drown them. There was a figure in the flames moving towards them. They saw the bluest glowing eyes stand out among the flames. The blue eyes were framed by cadmium red locks and alabaster skin. His body was sheathed in black leather.

The seekers were rooted to their place. They could only feel fear and panic set in as they saw what looked like the incarnation of an evil god walk towards them. They should run, they thought. The man was the definition of a dark wizard, a man who had forsaken his soul for power.

"I see you've brought witchlings to feed the spell, _dark wizard,_" the stranger said.

Nabu sneered. "How is the Abyss, Ogron? What's it like finally having your immortality? How awful that you would fall for your own trap."

"I think you know what it is like being alive but not living, Nabu," the red-haired man said to the black wizard, but the seeker would feel his terrifying gaze on them, looking at them like prey. "Now tell me, what are you doing with witchlings like these two? Do they know who I am?" In the blink of an eye, the appeared standing above Sophie with his opal eyes trained on the girl. He grabbed the girl by the chin and looked into her eyes. "A Casterwill, aren't you? You have that snobbish pride of one from the House of Nobles. I thought I had destroyed all of you in the sixteenth century. Tell me, is she a gift, Nabu?"

"What?" Sophie stuttered.

"Get away from her! _Touchram!_" Lok roared.

Ogron shot across the ruins of the church. Lok's chest rose and fell rapidly. He came to stand by Sophie watching the stranger with wide eyes.

The man got up, unaffected by the attack. He brushed dirt off his shoulder and glared daggers meant to kill at the young seekers. "How annoying. I'm going to make you kill each other and then let you watch each other die in the Abyss." He was eerily confident about his words. His magic was so heavy in the air that in addition to the black and blue on the floor, they formed dark fogs around them that began to close in on them.

"Don't believe anything he says. He is a manipulator and a great liar. He will tell you anything to make you go with him into the Abyss. Ogron's spell is weak. He's not really here. Everything is just an illusion; even your sense of touch can be fooled. Make sure he doesn't get to you."

"Like how?" Lok asked. "We've never done anything like this."

"Don't let Ogron possess you. Don't make any deals with him. He will sweeten his words with magic to make you fall for his lies." The red sigils beneath their feet burned bright crimson as Nabu began to destroy the spell. Alien symbols appeared on the floor, a sign of Nabu's work.

"So we keep him busy until you're finished with your spell?" Lok asked.

"That sums it up."

"Then make it fast! We'll try to hold him off," the male seeker yelled.

Lok regarded the ruins. The black fog around him made him feel blind and cornered.

"Your name is Lok Lambert, isn't it?" Ogron's voice said from behind.

The blond seeker hastily threw a concussive spell at where he thought Ogron was.

"Don't waste your energy on such spells, Mr Lambert. You are above such childishness. My name is Ogron and I am a wizard of the Black Circle."

"Lok? Lok, where are you?" Sophie's panicked voice was heard in the distance.

Lok turned around to see himself alone in the black fog.

"How irritating. A Casterwill is still alive after all my efforts."

"What did Sophie's family do to you? They did nothing wrong," Lok defended.

"Obviously, you don't know the true history of the Casterwills. They're a rotten family worst than the Borgias trying to murder each other for a seat in the Casterwill council. They never did anything for the witches that died during the Inquisition. Even in this day and age, I'm not surprised that you hate her. It's only natural."

"I don't hate her!" Lok gritted his teeth, looking for a hint of the dark wizard. Ogron's voice seemed to be circling him. He stepped in and out of the black fog, but never stood still long enough for the seeker to get a good shot.

There was a resounding chuckle. "Don't lie to yourself. I can read hate as easily as I can read English. The Casterwills have always put themselves before others. They never shared their great library of magic with the commoners of the realm. They raised their children to walk all over the weak. Don't tell me that this doesn't ring a bell. Chances are that she was raised with everything at her beck and call while you floundered around doing your best with what you could find. I wouldn't be surprise if you were new to magic. What are the chances that she is snobby and unthoughtful?"

"What's your point?" Lok said acidly. He did not want to admit it, but he could agree with Ogron on some things. Sophie was bound to have her faults like any human.

"I am here to present you an opportunity. I am looking for an apprentice who will finish what I started with the Casterwills. I don't want you to kill her, I want you to put her in her place. My purpose in the sixteenth century was to rid society of the Casterwill greed. Put the fear of God in her and remind her that she cannot walk all over us. In return, I will share my library of magic with you and teach you how to harness your powers. I will teach you secrets that the Casterwill never knew. I will give you things that you must surely miss, like having a father."

"What do you know about my dad?" He began to break out in a cold sweat. How could this wizard or witch or whatever he was know about his missing father? What he reading his mind? Lok knew that the Specialists and Nabu had a magic altogether different from what he had seen in the Huntik Foundation and the Organisation. With them, it seemed everything he could imagine was possible.

"I know that he is gone from your life. You resent the fact that your father was an explorer who left you, your mother and your sister alone in this world. He cared more about his adventures than his family. This is what you feel, isn't it? Dante Vale is no father figure. He may be a teacher but what does he know about raising children? I have fostered witchlings who were the victims of the unjust world for centuries. I know how losing a mother or a father can break a person."

Lok clenched his fist tightly. "Shut up. I'm not falling for this. I am not broken," he said in a low voice.

"Lok, don't do this. Denial only makes it worst. First, you have to acknowledge that you have hate and rage inside of you because of your father. You have to let it out before you can find peace."

Ogron's voice rang in his head. Lok could not help but see the sense in his words. His words were speaking the dark truth in him that he had always hidden from everyone, including his family. His words were reassuring as father who understood his son's mistakes and could only help him to learn from them, something Lok missed dearly.

"I can teach you how to use your powers to your full potential. I can teach you the same wordless spells Nabu uses. I can teach you to fight. I can help you find answers. You can tell that there are things that both Huntik Foundation and the Organisation won't tell you about magic, about your father and about the purpose of those groups."

Lok felt helpless in the fog of darkness. Without being able to see Ogron, he could not help but be seduced by Ogron's words, words that tighten around his soul. Without anything to concentrate his fury on, he could only direct it at himself. Lok wanted to submit to the anger and the hatred, to submit himself to the truth.

"So what do you say, Lok?" Ogron stepped out of the fog to face Lok. There was a gentle smile on his face. It was as if he could see into his soul, see his past, present and future. He was evidently impressed with what he saw. It was mix of pride and fatherly love. "You've worked hard to get where you are right now, but I can tailor an education for your needs. I swear it on my word as a witch. You have an excellent mind for learning, only you're not made for this factory line education that this entire world has fallen in love with. A human mind isn't a machine to be put together."

Lok hated himself. He wanted to follow this man and see what he would teach him. "I'm not falling for this. Whatever you're doing, whatever magic you're using, I'm not falling for it."

"Lok, I am not using the enchanted tongue to persuade you. Whatever you feel right now are your own feelings made from your hate and loneliness. That dark wizard Nabu made you impervious to persuasion, not blind to the truth."

"Shut up! Stop reading my mind!"

Lok felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped. Without thinking, he launched a spell behind him, _"Boltflare!"_

There was a girlish groan.

Lok eyes widened. He looked over to where Ogron stood and then back to where he had launched the spell. "Sophie!"

The blond seeker cut through the fog and found the girl on the ground groaning in pain. "Sophie, I'm so sorry. Are you alright?" He held her gingerly and helped her sit, wracked with guilt.

She nodded weakly. "Ogron…." She pointed at the crimson-haired man who came to stand over them.

Lok's breath was rapid and came in short spurts. What had he done?

The fire on the ground around them was beginning to dissipate, a sign that Ogron's spell was weakening.

"Well, Lok, what do you want? Do you want to stay with the Foundation or come with me? That wizard is undoing my spell and soon, my spirit will have to leave this church. I was the one who sealed Mélusine in the church. You and I can see how dangerous she is. Once I'm gone, you will have to deal with her. My body is in another world far from Earth. I can leave you the formula that will help you seal her again, but that is all I can give you in terms of lessons. Make your choice now, Lok." The man picked up a rock off the ground.

The stone was engulfed in a blue and black fire and went out quickly to reveal a black ring set with a large oval garnet of blood red.

"This is Pandora's Ring. She can help you navigate the dream world and find me there, but she is a difficult creature as much as she is beautiful. With her, I give you the knowledge to seal Mélusine. Put it on and my spirit will guide you into casting the spell. You're going to need it." The ring floated into one of Lok's hand.

It was warm and hummed with power. The garnet had an unnatural brilliance and inside the large stone, Lok could see a nebula spinning slowly. He felt a connection to the stone, something ephemeral, beautiful, powerful, and most importantly, terrifying. He was afraid to name the powerful being in his hand.

I'm not going to take this, Lok thought. He looked up to see that Ogron's black fog of magic had rescinded. Ogron stood in the centre aisle of the church's wreckage staring at Nabu who was ready to fight. Ogron's magic was almost gone from the grounds.

Below their feet was something alive, an innocent and fertile ground good for laying down new spells. Nabu stood, holding onto his staff tightly as he eradicated Ogron's dark magic.

"_Everfight,"_ Lok whispered hoping that whatever conversation he had with Ogron was a dream. He poured his power into Sophie, healing her. She had taken an attack spell far too dangerously close to be able to block it.

He gave one last look to the ring before pocketing it.

"I swear, Lok, that really hurt," Sophie said to Lok as soon as she was lucid enough to sit up on her own.

"Geesh, I already said I'm sorry." He poured more power into her until she stopped him.

She looked at him strangely. "It's okay…. Nothing's broken. Are you okay?" She could tell that his head was not in this fight.

"…yeah," he said noncommittally. He looked at her singed and dirtied clothing. She looked like she had fought like hell against a demon.

The sky lit up with lightning. Sophie and Lok looked up to see a white dragon causing havoc in the sky. Lances of ice rained down on them. Nabu erected a barrier above their heads, letting the ice slide to the sides.

Sophie and Lok could hear a magical heartbeat, it was the sacred pulse of the Earth.

Ogron walked down the central aisle. In his hands were balls of dark lightning. There was no conviction in his face but he threw lightning at them, a frightening sight nonetheless.

"_Honourguard!"_ Lok yelled hastily.

He and Sophie hit the floor hard. He fished for an amulet at his neck.

"_Bring it on, Freelancer!"_ the blond seeker summoned. The grey warrior titan appeared wielding his hefty lance and shield. The titan growled and charged for the red-haired wizard swinging wildly. Lok was on his feet quickly.

"_En garde, Sabriel!"_ Sophie's Sabriel materialised experimentally swinging her blade and standing ready to jump into battle. Her gaze fell on Ogron. Without warning, she let out a piercing battle cry and charged for the wizard.

"Sabriel, what are you doing?" Sophie cried. She willed the slender titan to calm down, but Sabriel would not obey. The being of grace became a being of fury that pelted Ogron with attack after attack. The titan seemed be afflicted with uncontrollable insanity.

"Lok, she isn't listening to me," Sophie said breathlessly.

Lok, unsure of what to do, willed Freelancer to at least aide Sabriel. The armoured knight slashed at the red-haired wizard in quick fluid motions. "Just keep Ogron busy. Nabu needs to finish his spell."

Ogron danced out of the way of Sabriel's blade and Freelancer's lance. All through it, Lok could feel the man's brilliant blue eyes on him as if the battle with the titans was not his main concern.

Ogron jumped out of the way and onto the top of the remains of a support column. He raised a hand to the sky and from the dark clouds, bright hot white lightning poured into his left hand and came out of his right hand heading straight for Sabriel and Freelancer.

Sophie fell to her knees as Sabriel returned to her amulet. Lok felt as if he had been kicked in the chest with an steel-toed boot as Freelancer returned to him. He felt for his chest, making sure he had not been really hit.

"He destroyed them in one shot," Sophie gasped, breathing with great difficulty.

Ogron regarded them with calculating eyes. "There's a lot more I can do your titans, Casterwill. Be grateful that I'm being merciful." He paused, ready to throw lightning at them.

Without warning, Sophie and Lok felt a hand on their shoulders and found themselves at the altar standing where Nabu's staff stood. Nabu stood behind them, his face a mask of concern. He had just teleported them out of Ogron's range.

"Get to my staff and make sure it doesn't get knocked off. It needs to complete the spell. I'll deal with Ogron. Spells are going to be flying from everywhere, so be prepared." Nabu disappeared in a flash, teleporting away.

"Don't be foolish, Nabu. I am just as favoured by the full moon as you are, even if I am an apparition," Ogron stated calmly.

"That's fine. I don't need to beat you. Your spell won't last long."

"Don't think that this will be the end of the Black Circle by beating an illusion of me. We are immortal in soul and in body, Nabu."

Lok and Sophie gathered their wits. Nabu staff stood by itself on the stone floor. Lok looked to Sophie for reassurance. They felt the magical object vibrate with pure power and the base of magic Nabu had built into the ground. The last vestiges of Ogron's power in the church was clinging pitifully to the edges.

They looked to the two wizards. Nabu made his way to Ogron. A rage-filled purple orb appeared in his hand and he shot it at Ogron's impromptu pedestal, knocking him off. The red-haired wizard jumped out of the way and floated in the air wielding his lightning.

"He's flying!" Sophie said.

Nabu levitated from his spot several meters up in the sky wielding spheres of purple energy that rippled like water. They both could fly.

The two wizards circled each other in the air and soon, an aerial fight ensued.

"_Honourguard!"_ both of them yelled as a they deflected black lightning with their combined power. Sophie and Lok were gobsmacked at the sight. Ogron threw his black lightning as Nabu threw rippling waves of energy. It was a storm of magic flying with rampant spells crashing everywhere as they struggled to keep away stray enchantments, some more difficult than others—an obvious sign of both wizards' potent power.

Ogron disappeared in a cloud of gray smoke. The cloud did not dissipate but dance around Nabu dodging his attacks. Nabu radiated fury and angry, intent on finishing Ogron forever. The seekers knew not where Nabu's ferocious strength came from, but he fought making every attack count. Revenge thickened in the air and here was a personal vendetta between the two wizards that could not be ignored.

The surrounding houses, already weakened by the tremors of the church collapsing, had begun to crumble from the onslaught of wild attacks. Whole walls had been demolished in minutes and the buildings themselves threatened to topple.

"Lok, the house is going to fall on us!" Sophie said. To the seekers' right, the old duplex began to tremble on its columns and the roof threatened to spill into them. They hesitated to move, looking worriedly at the Nabu's golden staff working his spell. They had no spells that could protect them from a collapsing building.

The duplex began to topple and clouds of dust rose. It was the same sight as the Huntik Foundation safe house collapsing from the fire.

"Let's get out of here!" Lok said grabbing Sophie and running from the oncoming wreckage.

A wall of bricks began to tumble towards them. They felt a hot blast energy erupt behind them and Lok pushed the girl to the floor hoping that they would survive. They curled and covered their heads as several burning hot bricks was hit them. Surely, there would be bruises on them the next morning, if they survived. A frame of wood crashed around them deafeningly.

Lok let out a muffled cry as pain constricted his right leg. He let out hot tears of pain before he blacked out.

000000

Yseult dove down to avoid a lance of ice. Ariel deflected several lances.

Four silvery dragons danced around Mélusine leading her to the ruins of the church. Mélusine was unable to successfully hit the them. She let out a frustrated cry and opened her mouth to unleash a blast of ice, snow and chilly air at them. The ice was so cold that it burnt Dante's skin. Yseult dove out of the way hissing in pain. They flew low over the rooftops. Mélusine's icy breathe fell over the city freezing it.

Dante looked below to see entire blocks covered in ice. On the streets, people were completely still, frozen in ice. It began to snow lightly despite it being full summer.

"We have to stop her now. People are getting hurt!" Dante yelled over the communicator.

Melusine directed her ice ray in a circle trying to freeze Dante and the Specialists, inadvertently freezing the city below.

"Fly up!" Timmy said. "There's nothing but clouds up there. Air traffic control has grounded all the planes in the city."

Dante urged Yseult to climb the skies. They gathered into a tight V formation and Melusine rose after them, undoing herself from her coil. They climbed until they were above the clouds and scattered. Melusine broke the surface of clouds.

The wind rushed around Dante. Timmy and Quilate circled the macabre beast. Timmy held in his hand what looked like a sniper rifle, not bothered by Quilate's sudden swerves and dives. No doubt his gun was enchanted or made of advance technology. His rifle fired rounds of light that resembled shooting stars. They hit her in the eye with great precision and force.

Helia, Riven and Dante swirled above her head in a circle. Frustrated, Mélusine aimed another beam of ice at them and they scattered. Yseult followed after Tesoro. Helia's black jacket was cut in various places from the sharp ice.

"The others are taking too long. I'm trying something," Helia warned. "Cover me!"

"What are you doing?" Riven yelled.

Helia pulled something out from his breast pocket. Dante squinted his eyes, curious as to what the Specialist was planning. He could barely see the others in the dark sky. Fortunately, Mélusine's scales radiated the moon's light enough to make the other dragons visible. Helia urged Tesoro to dive steeply towards Mélusine.

"_Let's rock, King Basilisk!"_

Dante's heart froze. King Basilisk's formed out of the darkness of the sky roaring for blood. The serpent king trailed after Tesoro, but the golden dragon pulled steeply out of her dive just before Mélusine's face.

"Turn her to stone, King Basilisk," Helia commanded.

The titan beat its wings floating in front of the white serpentine visage. King Basilisk let out an infuriated cry and unleashed its petrifying gaze on Mélusine.

Melusine's long curling frame became rigid, as if a shiver was riding up her spine.

Dante watched with horrid fascination as various parts of her body began to turn to stone.

It took her a minute to realise what was happening. "What have you done to me, witch?!" Melusine screamed. She began to trash violently hoping to undo King Basilisk's petrification. "What have you done?!"

Yseult dodged a wing that had turned to stone. The others began to navigate her wildly-moving body. Helia and King Basilisk moved out of the way climbing to a safe height.

"How in the hell did he get King Basilisk?!" Dante asked holding on to Yseult tightly.

Mélusine let out another breath of ice showering the them with more obstacles. No place in the sky was safe from Mélusine's attacks. Helia tried to steady himself in Tesoro's saddle, a difficult task in itself. Tesoro let out a breath of white-hot fire that melted a boulder of ice coming towards them. Mélusine was on a rampage, making one last effort to try and destroy them all.

Helia pocketed Zhalia's amulet and pulled his hair out of his face. Tesoro swerved side to side trying to avoid Mélusine's sinuous body. Out of the blue, the man felt something hard as stone hit him in the back with massive force. His grip on the reins loosened and he felt himself falling off Tesoro's back. He began to fall to Earth.

"Ariel, catch him!" Dante said as he and Yseult began to dive after Helia and Tesoro.

"Get Mélusine to the church," Brandon's voice flooded everyone's ears much to their relief. "Help is here."

Dante ignored Brandon and continued to dive after Helia and Tesoro. The Suit fell to Earth at breakneck speed.

The roofs of Paris coming closer and closer, Tesoro straightened like an arrow, folding its wings flat against its back and reached for Helia. The dragon grabbed the Suit with its long claws, clutching the rider close to its belly. Unable to pull out and correct its course in time, the golden dragon began to unfold its wings slowing down before rolling on its back. It was going to crash on its back to keep Helia safe.

Ariel sped pass Dante and Yseult conjuring a tornado of winds to slow down Tesoro's dive.

Tesoro hit the cement street with a resounding crash cradling Helia on its stomach. It slid down the street causing concrete to fly everywhere. The dragon came to a stop when it crashed into the side of a house at the end of the road.

Dante jumped off Yseult's back before she could properly land on the ground. He raced off to Tesoro. The golden dragon gently rolled to drop Helia unto the street and straightened itself.

Dante reached for the man. Helia groaned and coughed, trying to get up.

"You…" he hissed. "Why do you have Zhalia's King Basilisk?" Dante grabbing the Suit by the collar.

The Suit endeavoured to form words. The wind had been knocked out of him and forming words was far from his mind. He keep his calm and looked at the man above him trying to wring answers out of him.

"Behind you, Dante," he said weakly with a tinge of alarm.

"Well, this isn't something that happens to me everyday," a new voice said chuckling. "How often does a dragon crash into one's self mid-battle in the air?"

Dante turned, shivers riding up its spine. A man dressed in black and gray leather approached Dante and the dragons. His cadmium red hair glowed like a fire in the night. He radiated danger. Yseult turned and let out a blood-curdling roar at the man.

She unleashed an onslaught of blue flames, effectively engulfing him in fire.

There was a resounding chuckle. Yseult's blue fires suddenly had a life of their own as they danced like ghosts around the leather-sheathed man.

Dante stood up getting into a defensive stance. He knew instinctively that the man was trouble. "Who are you?"

"I'm sorry, but your fight is with me, Ogron!" Nabu's voice said in the distance.

A whip of purple energy grabbed Ogron's wrist, whipping him across the street. Nabu stood at the other end controlling the purple whip.

Dante took in his surroundings. The entire street had been demolished by some unknown war. There was a thick cloud of dust in the air. Nothing was recognizable. He looked around at the buildings and then realised where he was. They were at the church, or at least at what remained of the church and the street it used to be on.

A bolt of green flew over Dante's head and through the dust. Brandon swung his sword threateningly at Ogron promising an undoubtedly deadly battle.

"Dante, Helia, get a move on to the church." Brandon sounded like he had fought his own battles before getting to the church. "Nabu and I will handle Ogron. Riven and Timmy are attracting Mélusine here but I need you two to complete Nabu's work."

The dragons hissed at the ongoing battle. Dante regarded the ragged long-haired Suit dangerously. His patience was about to run thin with these Specialists, most especially with Helia. He wanted answers from the infuriating long-haired man and was ready to blast him for it.

He helped the Suit up. The black-haired man dusted his pants off. No ordinary man would stand up after just falling from the clouds. Indeed, he had the makings of a durable seeker. They scrambled across the rubble looking for some sort of indicator of Nabu's work or the backup Brandon had brought.

"_Aerolux!"_

Magic flowed around them like gentle zephyrs. The cloud of dust that thickened the air began to recede in one direction, pushed by magic and drawn into an invisible vacuum.

A figure stood in the heap of rubble with her hand up in the air drawing the dust into her palm with magic. She was illuminated by the magic in her hand. She seemed like a familiar figure, wearing loose shorts and a sports jacket, and then Dante realised who she was. She wore her same turquoise beanie hat. She was the thief and she eyed the great white scaled goliath eclipsing the moon.

Dante hoped that this was not the backup that Brandon had mentioned.

* * *

><p><strong>Latter Note: <strong>I am sure Dante has just about had it with the Specialists and everything that has happened. No word on Zhalia in this chapter but I assure you that she will be properly dealt with soon. It is an onslaught of action, but things will calm down soon enough. I am not sure if Paris can be rebuilt after this though,

I finished watching all of season two of Huntik a few months ago and I am eager to see what season three will be like.


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